Her eyes popped at him. “Convicted of—? You can’t be serious!”

“Think about it. An able prosecutor smooth-talking a jury. The young wife of the old millionaire, the wife’s boy friend—both conspiring to murder the old man and live happily ever after on his millions. Strike a chord?”

“It was nothing of the kind.” Her face turned crimson; she looked down at her hands. “What you must think of me.”

Oakley said, “Don’t misunderstand. What I’m saying is that if the circumstances of Earle’s death ever become public knowledge the newspapers will wallow in it and the classic explanation I’ve just suggested is the first thing they’ll assume. You’ll be dragged through slime—it’s the kind of case that’ll be tried and judged by the press long before it ever gets near a courtroom. Is that what you want? Or would you rather none of it ever got into print? Would you rather be grilled mercilessly by a prosecuting attorney hell-bent on making a big reputation at your expense or get scot-free after a few perfunctory routine questions by a bored county official? Would you rather have Earle’s death dragged through the front pages as murder or manslaughter, or have it appear quietly in a black box on the obituary page as an accidental death? Yes, damn it, I am threatening you.”

She studied his face; she glanced at Adams and at Orozco; she said tentatively, “The penalty for blackmail is damned severe, Carl.”

“Ten to twenty years,” Frankie Adams said dryly. “Felony.”

Oakley shook his head. “Am I trying to extort a penny from you? Come off it. I’m trying to get Terry back and I believe the only way to do it is to pay the ransom. I’m using the only weapon I’ve got.”

Louise sank back in her chair. “I suppose I’ve got no choice.”

“Then you agree to meet the kidnapers’ demands?”

“If you think it’s best.” She had given up.

Orozco’s voice rolled between them abruptly: “This here weapon of yours looks to me like the kind of stick you use to beat dead horses with, Carl. Maybe this all hit you too fast to think it out, but how do you figure to raise the ransom money with Conniston dead? And who’s going to make contact with the kidnaper when he calls back and wants to talk to Conniston? He ain’t likely willing to talk to anybody else.”

“He won’t have to,” Oakley said.

Louise, full of acid, snapped, “I suppose you’re going to reincarnate him?”

“In a way. In the morning Earle Conniston’s going to call the president of Farmers and Merchants and arrange to have the cash ready for me to pick it up. In the afternoon when the kidnaper calls back Earle Conniston’s going to answer the phone.”

Looking past her astonished disbelieving face, he saw slow comprehension spread across Frankie Adams’ narrow features. Oakley said relentlessly, “I’ve heard you do Conniston’s voice. Nobody will know the difference, especially over a telephone. You’re going to be Earle Conniston.”

Adams shot bolt upright in his chair, ready to rise—but Oakley’s eyes jammed him back down in his seat.

“You’ve got to be out of your gourd,” Adams said.

“You can do it.”

“Count me out. Nuts.”

Oakley just looked at him patiently until Adams began to squirm, remembering the earlier conversation; Adams seemed to grow smaller and heavier in the chair. “Look, I’ll try it if I have to but I’m in no shape to do a convincing act. Besides, there’s too many holes in it—it’s no good. We can’t keep Conniston alive forever, can we? What happens when they find out we concealed his death?”

“I’ll take care of that. Nobody’s going to find out.”

“Maybe so. Maybe so. But Christ, I can’t even remember what he sounded like.”

“I’m sure Mrs. Conniston’s willing to coach you.” He ignored Louise’s sarcastic glance; he added, “If it matters you’ll be paid for the performance.”

“A bribe, you mean.”

“Enough to keep body and soul apart,” Oakley agreed with a thin smile. “Maybe it’ll encourage you to work on it. I want you to practice voice and delivery until you’ve got it letter-perfect.”

“Easy for you to say—but what the hell, when I got here I was just about ready to go out on the street with a tin cup, that’s no secret. How much I get paid?”

“I won’t haggle. Say ten thousand.”

Louise said, “Whose money are you slinging around like that?”

He didn’t answer her. Adams said, “Only one thing. I wish I could be sure I can trust you.”

“None of us can afford not to trust each other,” Oakley replied. “And don’t forget Terry. She’s got to trust us too.”

After a while Adams said abstractedly, “He talked like an obstacle race. Didn’t he? Left out articles and subjects of sentences. Voice a little like Gregory Peck, deep in the diaphragm. Christ, I guess I’ll have a hack at it.”

When the sun burst through the window Adams was practicing Conniston’s voice, listening to Oakley’s remarks: how to talk to the banker, the name of the banker’s wife about whom Conniston always asked, the ostensible reason for raising so much unmarked cash—a big under-the-table payment to secure the cooperation of key stockholders in a corporate takeover. Oakley took him over it a dozen times; when he left Adams with Louise and Orozco he had a taut feeling of expectant confidence. He went back to the bedroom to shower and shave and change into fresh clothes. When he checked his watch it was shortly after eight—ten o’clock New York time. He called a stockbroker in Phoenix and kept his voice low: “How many shares of Conniston stock do I hold? How many shares outstanding?… All right. Sell two hundred thousand shares short for me…. Never mind that. Do it through dummies—scatter it so it won’t look like a power play. I’m not trying to manipulate it but I expect it to go down a few points and I want to make a few bucks, that’s all. Breathe one word to anybody and I’ll make it hurt, Fred.”

Afterward he immediately called another broker in Los Angeles and repeated the substance of the conversation; he repeated the short-sell order with half a dozen brokers across the country before he rang off and turned toward the front of the house, walking briskly on crepe-soled shoes, and saw Orozco looming darkly in the corridor. The fat man, vigilant and silent, held his troubled glance until Oakley felt uncomfortable enough to look away. When he came up, Orozco said mildly, “I went to call my boys to get working on the wiretap call-trace but you were on the line.” There was no hint of guile on Orozco’s dark bland cheeks. But Oakley knew he had heard the whole thing.

“Just keep it to yourself, Diego. It’ll be worth your while.”

“I’m sure it will,” Orozco murmured, and turned heavily back into the office. Oakley had to steel himself against the sound coming out of the office—Earle Conniston’s voice.

C H A P T E R Nine

Terry Conniston sat like a taut-wound watch spring in the shade of the sagging porch overhang. Near the perilous breaking-edge, she felt as if at any moment she might start screaming and not be able to stop; and so she kept herself rigidly under control, all her movements slow and cautious, all her decisions ponderous. Her slender fingers clenched and opened at regular intervals; she watched a domed anthill which squatted naked like a cancerous boil on the face of the ground below the porch. The brutal little monsters had denuded the surrounding earth of everything but rocks and sand.

Overhead little gray birds flitted soundlessly from rooftop to rooftop and the indifferent sun burned down like brass; the desert heat was thick and close. The young sandy-haired one called Mitch sat against the wall at the far corner of the porch, making a point of not watching her. His face was not cruel like the others’; he seemed willing to respect her desire to be left alone. At first she had been surprised by the casual way they had of keeping desultory watch on her but not confining her at all. Only gradually had it dawned on her that since she didn’t have keys to either car her only means of escape would be afoot across the desert, and they would be able to see her on the flats anywhere within a mile of the ghost town. It was a far more effective prison than bars.