"Chalker, Jack L - G.O.D. Inc 1 - Labyrinth of Dreams" - читать интересную книгу автора (Chalker Jack L)

get your finder's fee. Ten percent of everything we get back."
"A banker can really hide that kind of stuff easily," Brandy noted. "He's an
expert at it, and that's small change to a dude like him."
"True, but a banker can also tell me where he hid it and how. Just give him to
me."
"This will take real money to get anywhere," I noted. "You know how much we
have."
"Yes, you must have a retainer," Little Jimmy agreed, and reached into his coat
pocket. He brought out a wallet so overstuffed he lost ten pounds just taking it
out, and he opened it and counted out a wad. "Five thousand dollars," he told
us. "A retainer. Not a loan. All cash, no taxes, no reporting unless you want
to. That -- and these." He pulled out, so help me, two MasterCards and handed them
over. One had my name on it, one had Brandy's. We kind of stared at them in
wonder. Both were on the Tri-State Savings Fund.
"They're real, and they'll work," assured Nkrumah. "They are billed to a
business I own. They're not approved for cash advances -- you already have that -- but
they're good for purchases such as clothes and airline tickets. At a hundred
dollars a day, I've hired you for the next fifty days. If you bring me a name
sooner, the cards will be invalidated, but the retainer is yours. Naturally,
though, the retainer and whatever is charged will come out of your percentage of
whatever is recovered."
I stared at the money and the cards. "Yeah, but what if we don't turn him up? Or
what if you don't recover before he croaks? What if one of the big boys finds
him first? What happens then?"
"Then you cover the charges with whatever is left of the retainer and you keep
the rest, if any. If there is a deficit, the balance still will not go below
zero. You'll have nothing, but that's exactly what you have now."
He had a point, but the trail was growing colder by the hour.
"We have to talk this over," Brandy told him. "Leave this. If we take the case,
time will be important. If we don't, we'll drop them by your office today."
Little Jimmy smiled again. "Oh, I know you will," he responded. "Good day." And,
with that, he walked out, leaving that pile of bills and those two cards that
were better than bills sitting on a box in front of us.
I looked at Brandy. "Well?"
"You think we really got a crack at this Whitlock dude?"
"No, but we'd always wonder if we didn't try. Ocean Estates isn't open yet; Joe
was just doing us a favor. I can call him and tell him we'll be down later.
That'd give us a month. I can't see any reason not to take it. Why? What's
bothering you?"
"This. All this. Nobody with his underworld connections just waltzes in and
hands over this kind of bread to two washed-up dicks on their way to the
poorhouse. Remember, that same bad dude set up my father with a twisted scheme."
"You think he's using us in a setup, too? I dunno. This isn't the same kind of
case. This is 'find a man.' Classic P.I. work. I don't know if his story is true
or not, but the odds are Whitlock's into him or somebody anyway and skipped just
ahead of them. What they do to him, or why, or even if there's no pot of gold at
the end of this rainbow, it could make for a real challenging thirty days."
"Yeah, maybe, but Daddy thought his was a safe Something Big, too. If we're
gonna go with this, you call Joe, but I'm gonna at least run down and unhock
Daddy's gun."