You'll Get Yours. Thomas Wills

is money to us. But not stacked against 4-million. How do they want it handled?”

      I told him.

      He listened carefully and then he nodded. “The envelope you get will probably have another check in it. Or a key to a box in Grand Central or LaGuardia.”

      “In that case,” I said, “all I should do is pick up my envelope first.”

      He smiled. “Sure,” he said. “Do that, Barney. I’ll send flowers.”

      “Nothing would happen to me.”

      He spread his hands and when he spoke his voice was bored. “You’re the expert,” he said. “My only angle is to protect Kyle. If you get yourself killed I’ll just have to start all over with a new boy.”

      “That would be an inconvenience,” I admitted.

      He ran his fingers through his hair. “Why don’t you just play it smart, kid? Make the payoff and make the pickup. Okay?”

      “Okay.”

      “About twenty grand. I’ll get that from Kyle tonight.”

      “I can get it,” I said.

      He shook his head. “That’s another thing, Barney. The girl.”

      “What about the girl?”

      “Private property. Strictly. I just thought I’d warn you.”

      I grinned. “You know what you can do with your warnings.”

      “Don’t, Barney,” he said. “I’d kill you over Kyle Shannon.”

      Well, you have to expect days like these. But you don’t have to keep taking it. I got up and went over to him. My fingers wrapped themselves around the big knot in his tie and I pulled him closer.

      “Agent,” I told him, “you keep saying things like that and you’re going to get knocked silly.”

      “Let go, Barney.” His voice was thin. “I can’t take being handled. Take your goddamned hand off me!”

      I didn’t hit him and be done with it. I don’t know why. I just spun him away from the desk and shoved him away from me.

      “Get the money!” I shouted at him. “Get it and then get out of this thing. The more I see you the more I want to take you apart.”

      There was a strange smile on his face, no more than an upward curl of his lip, and a curious, wintery expression in his dark eyes as we stood facing each other across the room. Maybe he did have it in him to kill a man. But not unless the man had his back to him.

      I turned my back and walked out.