Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 116, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 709 & 710, September/October 2000

“Not exactly. I told him I’d come out here with someone else who knew where he was. So he offered you a thousand, too. I told him I had to come out and get you to agree. He says he can get the money, in cash, of course, this afternoon. Anyway, I started thinking.”

“You can stop thinking. We aren’t doing this.”

“Hear me out. This guy says taking the money isn’t a crime. We’re not sheriffs, we’re not officers of the court. We can’t be bribed. If we don’t file an affidavit that says we couldn’t find him, then we haven’t committed fraud. We just walk away. That’s all he’s asking. Walk away with two thousand dollars. Somebody else has already done it.”

“Sean, we can’t do this. Mickey gave us this chance. We’d be stabbing him in the back. Hell, we have to tell him that somebody else sold him out. We’re doing this for the summer, we’re passing through. This is his life. We can’t ruin his reputation.”

“Yeah, but two grand sure would make our lives easier.”

“No doubt. What do you think a hundred grand would do? We’ll make more money someday. So this year we’ll eat a lot of ramen, we’ll mooch off all our friends, we’ll go inactive at the fraternity. It’ll pass. If we do this, that woman and her kids will never get that money.”

“I know, I know. There’s got to be a way to take the money and then paper him. I have no problem lying to a weasel like him.”

“I don’t know, man. That’s real iffy. We’ve just got his word that it’s not a crime. If you take it, maybe it’s some kind of conspiracy to commit fraud even if we don’t do it. It’s his word against ours. We’d spend all the money in legal fees just trying to hold onto it or stay out of jail. Let it rest. Go back inside, tag him, and go. Agreed?”

“Agreed. Anyway, if I did it what kind of motto would we have? Whatever it takes or best offer?”

Sean walked back to the house and knocked on the front door. Hitchens yelled, “Come on in. Have a seat. I’m on the phone. Just be a couple of minutes.”

Sean sat with the papers rolled up, batting them against his open palm. Five hundred bucks wasn’t bad. Two grand was a whole lot better. But Matt was right. He’d known it before he opened his mouth but sometimes, just talking things out, they’d come up with better plans than either one of them had on his own. They’d served a lot of papers that way. The perfect solution was keeping the money and serving the guy, but that wasn’t an option. He wondered how much they still needed for tuition. Their campus jobs in the cafeteria covered meals, and loans took care of room. That left tuition and books; oh well.

“All right, kid, come on in.”

Sean walked into Hitchens’s office. He was a big man, now well over two hundred pounds, Sean guessed, with long mutton-chop sideburns and a droopy left eye.

“What’ll it be? If I was you, I’d take the money. If you serve me, I’ll just get a friend to say I was at their job site when you claimed to serve me. Some place nice and isolated, no witnesses, just me and a friend. Your service’ll be dismissed, my ten years’ll run out. That bitch isn’t getting one penny of my money. No way. Paying you off is just the cost of doing business. I accept that. It’s easier, cleaner that way. No publicity, no court appearances, no hassles. Do the right thing, kid. Easiest two grand you’ll ever make. It’s a win-win situation. What do you say?”

Sean was adrift in this new sea of words. If the service was dismissed as bad, would they lose the five hundred? Could this turn out to be a complete loss, no service, no money? This guy had beaten the system for ten years. He sure sounded like he knew what he was talking about. Sean had to make a decision. The wrong one would carry a lifetime of consequences. Wasn’t this why they got the big bucks?

“Okay, this is what I’m going to do...” Sean spoke slowly, laying down a path of words like bread crumbs; maybe someone would find him before he committed an irreversible act.

“What we’re going to do is take the money. That’s what we agreed to, Sean, right?”

He looked back at the doorway. Matt strode in and reached out his hand to shake Burle Hitchens’s. “You’re absolutely right, Mr. Hitchens. This is a win-win situation.”

“What the hell?” Sean said, relieved, confused, and angry all at the same time. He stared incredulously at his brother like the RCA dog, his head cocked to the side.

“Sean, what’s our motto? Whatever it takes, right? Well, this is what it takes. Trust me.”

A mechanical chirp interrupted them. Matt pulled a phone out of his pocket and pushed a button to answer the call.

“No, not now. I can’t talk. Look, I’ll call you back in, say, fifteen minutes, okay? Fine. Goodbye.” He disconnected the line.

“Sorry, another case. Look, Sean, serving papers can’t be all that we’re about. There’s more to life. That’s the way I see it. We can do better here. Mr. Hitchens has offered us a way to do that. I think we ought to take him up on it. You understand what I’m saying?” He pointed the phone at him for emphasis.