Read 1956 - There's Always a Price Tag for Free Online Page B

another guy threw himself out of a window because of her.
    I had a hunch that this other guy might give me the key to the present setup. If I could find out who he had been and why he had thrown himself out of the window I might be able to assess better just how far she would go to get her hands on the money.
    How could I find this out?
    Dester had met her in New York. Presumably this other guy had thrown himself out of a window somewhere in New York.
    It looked to me as if I would need outside help on this job. The obvious way to get the dope on this other guy would be to hire an inquiry agent, but inquiry agents cost money.
    I suddenly snapped upright. Why was I all this interested? I asked myself. Why was I suddenly so determined to stick my nose into something that didn't concern me? I knew the answer, of course, but I didn't like admitting even to myself what the answer was.
    When I had found that Helen would collect three-quarters of a million dollars at Dester's death, a gnawing envy had taken hold of me. I began to ask myself if there was any chance to horn in and get a share of this money. I knew I had no claim to it, but it seemed to me that if Helen was planning to hurry Dester's death along, then I had a claim. If I could prove she had hurried his death along, I would have a hold on her. I knew the word for that kind of thing, but I wanted some of that money so badly I didn't flinch from the word.
    At the moment I was on the outside, looking in. I was like a member of a theatre audience. The curtain was up; the actors and actresses were on the stage, the plot was beginning to unfold, but I had no part in it. Somehow I had to get up on to that stage and join in the action.
    It seemed to me that it was time to have a straight talk with myself, to examine my conscience and find out just how far I would go for a share in that money. This was between me and me, and if I couldn't be frank with myself, I couldn't be frank with anyone.
    Everything depended, of course, on the share I was going to get. The bigger the share, the bigger the risk I would be prepared to take. How much could I grab without causing too much opposition? Half? A quarter?
    I remembered one of Solly's many sales slogans: Always ask for twice as much as you expect: you may surprise yourself and get it.
    Then I would go for half: three hundred and fifty grand.
    I lay staring up at the ceiling as I tried to visualize what it would mean to have all that money. The most money I had ever earned in a year was four thousand bucks, and that was in the hey-day of the boom and I had sweated my guts out to earn it.
    Three hundred and fifty thousand!
    It set my heart hammering to think of all that money. It would change my life. How far would I go, how much would I risk to put my hands on that much money?
    A word jumped into my mind and I flinched from it. Then I remembered I was being frank with myself.
    Murder?
    Would I commit murder for such a sum?
    It was one thing to lie on this bed and contemplate murdering Dester for that money, but another thing to do it. Even if I could screw up enough guts to do it, there was the risk.
    If he were murdered, the first person the police would suspect would be Helen. I had a fair idea how a policeman's mind would work on a set up like this. He would reason Helen wanted to get rid of her husband to get the insurance money. He'd figure she was unlikely to do the actual killing herself. He would look around for the other man, and he would spot me.
    Then there was the insurance company to think of. They wouldn't pay out all that dough without a fight. Their own dicks were tougher, smarter and a lot more dangerous than the police.
    No, murder was too risky: straightforward murder that is, but how about murder by remote control? As Helen was planning it? It was easy enough. Dester had only to take the car out when he was full of liquor or walk into a stream of fast-moving traffic and that would be that. That seemed better to me,