Enough! (A Travesty and Ordo) Read Free Page A

a gentleman—that would be you—brought Mrs.
Penney home but left her at the street door and went away, or I could report
that you went in with her and came out without her and please see photo
attached.”
    I said, “How much?”
    “Well,” he said, “that’s a very
rare photograph.”
    “And I’m a very poor man.”
    He chuckled at me, disbelievingly. “Oh,
come along now. You’ve got a nice place in a rich part of town, you’ve—”
    “This isn’t a rich part of town. A couple
blocks west of here is rich, but not here.”
    “This is the Upper East Side,” he informed me, as though I didn’t
know where I lived.
    “Look,” I said. “You just
walked up the stairs yourself, do you think they have
walk-ups in a rich part of town?”
    “On the Upper East Side of Manhattan they
do. Besides, you’re a writer.”
    “I’m a movie reviewer. There isn’t any
money in that.”
    “You’ve had books out.”
    “Film criticism.
Did you ever see a book of film criticism on the best-seller list?”
    “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the
best-seller list,” he said, “but I do know from my years with the
agency that successful writers tend to have nice pieces of money about
themselves.”
    “I don’t,” I said. “For God’s
sake, man, you’re a detective, surely you could check into that, find out if
I’m a liar or not. I’ll show you my checkbook, I’ll
show you letters from my wife screaming for money, I’ll show you my old income
tax returns.”
    “Well, sir,” he said, “if you’re too poor, I think I’d be better off going for the
glory of making the arrest.”
    A cold breeze touched me. “Wait a
minute,” I said. “I didn’t say I don’t have any money. Obviously, if
I can afford to pay I’d rather do that than go to jail. It just depends how
much you want.”
    He frowned at me. He studied me and thought it
over and glanced around the living room—and to think I’d been pleased at how
expensive I’d made the place look—and at last he came to a decision: “Ten
thousand dollars.”
    “Ten thousand dollars!
I don’t have it.”
    “I won’t bargain with you, Mr.
Thorpe.” He sounded rueful but determined. “I couldn’t falsify my
report for a penny less.”
    “I don’t have the money,
it’s as simple as that.”
    He heaved himself to his feet. “I’m truly
sorry, Mr. Thorpe.”
    “I’ll tell them, you know. That you tried to blackmail me.
    He gave me a mildly curious frown.
“So?”
    “They’ll know it’s the truth.” I
jammed the photograph into my trouser pocket. “I’ll have this picture for
evidence.”
    He shrugged and smiled and shook his head.
“Oh, they’d probably believe you,” he said, “but they wouldn’t
care. Funny thing about police, they’d rather catch a murderer than a
blackmailer any day in the week.”
    “They’ll have both. I may go to jail, but
you’ll go right along with me.”
    “Oh, I don’t think so.” He could not
have been more calm. “I’d be their whole case,
you know,” he said. “Their star witness. I
don’t think they’d want to cast any aspersions on their own star witness, do
you? I think you’d generally be called a liar. I think generally people would
say you were doing it out of spite.”
    I thought. He watched me thinking, with his
curly little smile, and finally I said, “Two thousand. I could raise that somewhere, I’m sure I could.”
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Thorpe, I told you I
won’t bargain. It’s ten thousand or nothing.”
    “But I don’t have it! That’s the Lord’s
own truth!”
    “Oh, come on, Mr. Thorpe, surely you’ve
got something set aside for a rainy day.”
    “But I don’t. I’ve never had the knack, it’s one of the things my father’s always hated about
me. He’s the squirrel, I’m the grasshopper.”
    He frowned, deeply. “What was that?”
    “I don’t save up my nuts,” I
explained, “or whatever grasshoppers save up. You know, you know, the
children’s story.