Chinaman’s Chance
- Автор: Томас Росс
- Серия: Arthur Case Wu #1
- Год: 1978
- Язык: английский
- Год: Simon & Schuster
- ISBN: 978-0-671-24070-7
- Жанр: Политические детективы
Электронная книга - «Chinaman’s Chance». Краткое содержание книги:
Durant nodded.
“We can cut and run.”
“No.”
“You’re still counting on what that doctor told you in London?”
“He was a pretty expensive doctor. Thirty-five guineas an hour.”
“The retribution theory.”
“Yeah,” Durant said. “Retribution, not revenge. There’s a difference.”
“She’s dead, Quincy,” Wu said, his voice gently reasonable.
“I know. I’ve finally got around to accepting that. But I should’ve done something about it. According to our Harley Street friend, it really wouldn’t have mattered much what I did as long as it was something. But I didn’t do anything. So it all started festering inside some place, the feelings that I wouldn’t let myself have, the guilt I wouldn’t admit; then the conflict and the payoff in the form of a permanently limp dick, which for us grown-ups isn’t much fun.”
“It’s some theory,” Wu said.
“You don’t buy it?”
“I don’t know. Retribution.” Wu shook his head. “If you fix Simms, who was responsible for Christine’s dying, then you fix up the family jewels. It’s a little pat.”
“The shrink’s theory was that it doesn’t matter what I do to Simms. I can slap him on the wrist or drop him off a cliff. What he meant — and this part I do buy — is that it doesn’t matter a damn what I do now as long as I believe that it’s what I should have done then. You follow that — or is it too murky?”
“Yeah, I follow it.”
“It’s all a matter of confidence.”
“Impotency?”
Durant nodded.
“Well, shit,” Wu said, “we can’t have you going around like this for the rest of your life.”
“No, that’s a bit long.”
“So let’s get on with it, then.” Wu looked past Durant to the ocean, still gray from the overcast, although the horizon, for some reason, was clearly defined — so clearly, in fact, that Catalina was plainly visible, which it seldom was, even on clear days. “I’ve had a couple of ideas,” Wu continued, “which, when you hear them, might help you to understand why they used to call us Oriental folks wily.”
“Shifty, too.”
“Well, this is one of the shiftiest ideas I’ve ever had, but it might make us a little money.”
“How much is a little?”
Wu blew one of his smoke rings. Durant watched it rise toward the ceiling and said, “That much, huh?”
“How can you tell?”
“Whenever you come up with something really rotten, you blow a smoke ring first. It’s sort of like italics.”
Wu blew another smoke ring and said, “A half a million. Each. Cash.”
Durant leaned back in the suede chair and looked at the ceiling. “Well, now. A slight risk involved, of course.”
“We might wind up in jail. Or dead.”
“As I said, a slight risk.”
Wu blew his third smoke ring. “Your ears always get pointy.”
Durant touched his right ear. “When?”
“Whenever I mention a bit of money, they start growing points.” He sighed. “Greed, I suppose.”
“I didn’t think it showed. Tell me about how we’re going to get rich, Artie.”
Wu looked at his watch. “Let’s call Otherguy first and get him and McBride out here for a small conference.” Wu rose and went over to the telephone. He reached Overby on the third ring. Overby said that they could make it by two that afternoon. Wu hung up the phone and went back to the couch, sat down, and blew a final smoke ring.
Then he looked at Durant and smiled. “Let’s go after the two million.”
“Eddie McBride’s two million?”
Wu nodded.
“That means we’ll have to go after Simms.”
Again Wu nodded.
“I like it already,” Durant said. “But half of two million is a million each. You said half a million.”
“We might have to divvy it up with a couple of people.”
“Well, fair’s fair. Let’s hear your rotten plan.”
Wu grinned. “It’s really rotten.”
“Good,” Durant said, and lit a Pall Mall, his second for the morning. “Let’s hear it.”
It took Artie Wu nearly an hour and forty-five minutes to outline his ideas. It took that long because Durant immediately began poking some father large holes in them, which together they plugged up. Then Aggie Wu and the children came back and they decided to have the picnic early out on the deck. After the picnic, the children were put to bed for a nap on the twin beds in the spare bedroom, Aggie Wu decided to take a nap in Durant’s room.
When the children and their mother were finally asleep, Durant and Wu went over the scheme again, probing for weak spots, for holes, and for gaping inconsistencies. They found quite a few and patched them over mostly with improvisation.
Finally, Durant locked his hands behind his neck and gazed up at the ceiling again. “By God, it’s rotten, isn’t it?”
Wu smiled. “I thought you’d like it.”
“You know what the odds against it are?”
Wu shrugged. “We’ve got a Chinaman’s chance.”
“That bad, huh?”
Wu stuck a fresh cigar into his mouth and around it grinned a big, wide, white, merry grin. “Nah,” he said. “That good.”
Chapter 29
Otherguy Overby fell in love with Durant’s house. In fact, nothing could begin until Overby was given a tour of the place. Aggie Wu had taken the children for a last, damp walk along the beach, this time toward Santa Monica, and Overby went through the house like a prospective buyer, opening closets, flushing the toilet, and making sure that the garbage-disposal unit in the kitchen worked properly.
After that, Overby stood in the middle of the living room, looking around with a proprietary air. “How much you paying, Quincy, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Six-fifty.”
Overby stuck his lower lip out a little, turned the corners of his mouth down, and nodded his approval. “Not bad, not half bad. Your furniture?”
“Yes.”
“What about the utilities?”
“Another fifty or so.”
“Not bad at all. And you got the ocean.”
“Plus the beach.”
“Who cares about the beach?” Overby said. “All a beach is good for is tracking sand in all over the place.” Overby nodded to himself, still looking around, and said in a voice that was clearly a self-addressed promise, “One Of these days.”
“One of these days what?” Artie Wu said.
“One of these days I’m gonna make a bundle and buy me a place like this and then tell the world to go fuck itself.”
“You want a beer in the meantime?” Durant said.
“Yeah, I would, thanks.”
“What about you, Eddie?”
“Sure,” McBride said.
After each had a beer, he selected a place to sit in the living room, Overby claiming a spot on the couch so that he could keep an eye on the ocean. McBride sat in the leather Eames chair which he had bled on a little a few nights before. Durant chose the suede chair, and Wu sat on the couch with Overby.
“All right,” Durant said, “let’s see what we’ve got scheduled.” He looked at Overby. “You’ve got an appointment with Simms tomorrow at nine, right?”
“Right.”
“How long do you think it’ll take?”
“An hour probably. Maybe a little more.”
“And you’ve got the reporter — what’s his name?”
“Conroy,” Overby said. “Herb Conroy.”
“Yeah, Conroy. You’ve got him set for the lunch tomorrow.”
“I’m going to pick him up at twelve, maybe a little before.”
“He still thinks it’s about a job?” Wu said.
“Sure.”
“I think,” Durant said slowly, “that we’d better get a rundown from you, Otherguy, on your meeting with Simms before we get into the lunch.”