frightened than I had on the ledge.
‘You fixed it,’ I said slowly. ‘Somehow, you fixed it.’
‘Not at all. The heroin has been removed from your car. The car itself is back in the parking lot. The
money is over there. You may take it and go.’
‘Fine,’ I said.
Tony stood by the glass door to the balcony, still looking like a leftover from Halloween. The .45 was
in his hand. I walked over to the shopping bag, picked it up, and walked towards the door on my jittery
ankles, fully expecting to be shot down in my tracks. But when I got the door open, I began to have the
same feeling that I’d had on the ledge when I rounded the fourth corner: I was going to make it.
Cressner’s voice, lazy and amused, stopped me.
‘You don’t really think that old lady’s-room dodge fooled anyone, do you?’
I turned back slowly, the shopping bag in my arms. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I told you I never welsh, and I never do. You won three things, Mr Norris. The money, your freedom, my wife. You have the first two. You can pick up the third at the country morgue.’
I stared at him, unable to move, frozen in a soundless thunderclap of shock.
‘You didn’t really think I’d let you have her? he asked me pityingly. ‘Oh, no. The money, yes. Your
freedom, yes. But not Marcia. Still, I don’t welsh. And after you’ve had her buried -‘
I didn’t go near him. Not then. He was for later. I walked towards Tony,. who looked slightly surprised
until Cressner said in a bored voice: ‘Shoot him, please.’
I threw the bag of money. It hit him squarely in the gun hand, and it struck him hard. I hadn’t been
using my arms and wrists out there, and they’re the best part of any tennis player. His bullet went into
the burnt-orange rug, and then I had him.
His face was the toughest part of him. I yanked the gun out of his hand and hit him across the bridge of
the nose with the barrel. He went down with a single very weary grunt, looking like Rondo Hatton.
Cressner was almost out the door when I snapped a shot over his shoulder and said, ‘Stop right there, or
you’re dead.’
He thought about it and stopped. When he turned around, his cosmopolitan world-weary act had
curdled a little around the edges. It curdled a little more when he saw Tony lying on the floor and
choking on his own blood.
‘She’s not dead,’ he said quickly. ‘I had to salvage something, didn’t I?’ He gave me a sick, cheese-eating
grin.
‘I’m a sucker, but I’m not that big a sucker,’ I said. My voice sounded lifeless, dead. Why not? Marcia
had been my life, and this man had put her on a slab.
With a finger that trembled slightly, Cressner pointed at the money tumbled around Tony’s feet. ‘That,’
he said, ‘that’s chickenfeed. I can get you a hundred thousand. Or five. Or how about a million, all of it
in a Swiss bank account? How about that? How about -,
‘I’ll make you a bet,’ I said slowly.
He looked from the barrel of the gun to my face. ‘A -‘
‘A bet,’ I repeated. ‘Not a wager. Just a plain old bet. I’ll bet you can’t walk around this building on the ledge out there.’
His face went dead pale. For a moment I thought he was going to faint. ‘You . . .’ he whispered.
‘These are the stakes,’ I said in my dead voice. ‘If you make it, I’ll let you go. How’s that?’
‘No,’ he whispered. His eyes were huge, staring.
‘Okay,’ I said, and cocked the pistol.
‘No!’ he said, holding his hands out. ‘No! Don’t! I. . all right.’ He licked his lips.
I motioned with the gun, and he preceded me out on to the balcony. ‘You’re shaking,’ I told him. ‘That’s
going to make it harder.’
‘Two million,’ he said, and he couldn’t get his voice above a husky whine. ‘Two million in unmarked bills.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Not for ten million. But if you make it, you go free. I’m serious.’