Hard Cash Read Online Free PDF Page A

breath he’d drawn in and had been holding for forty seconds or so. “Yeah. I’m okay. Go ahead with what you were saying, Nolan. Shoot.”
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
    4
     
     
    RIGLEY’S COTTAGE was little dif ferent from any of the others along the Cedar River. Like most of them, it looked more like a small house than a cottage: an unassuming white clapboard high on a bank that sloped down gently to the river.
    Nolan shrugged out of his heavy leather coat as he came in, tossing it on a plaid upholstered couch. Rigley followed, got out of a gray, fur-collared coat, and hung it on the rack by the door; he hung Nolan’s there too.
    This front room—which apparently took up at least half the floor space of the cottage—had a comfortable masculine look to it. The walls were paneled in pine, and big pine-shuttered windows faced the river and flanked either side of a central fireplace, a massive affair of rust-color brick with a healthy blaze going in it. The furniture was lived-in looking, and there was no overhead lighting, just a standing lamp here and there. Rigley was an outdoorsman, evidently, or anyway fancied himself one; a mounted fish hung over the fireplace, and some pictures of ducks in flight flew above the couch. And down at the far end of the room, a small but overstocked bar was watched over by one of those big, lighted-up beer signs of an animated outdoor scene—a stream running through lush green woods. A masculine-looking room, all right, but a woman lived here. Nolan could see her in the neatness of the housekeeping; the dazzling polish of the hardwood floor, which was reflecting the glow of the fireplace like a huge mirror; the floral centerpiece of an otherwise rugged-looking picnic-type table. She was here now: Nolan could feel her presence. He could smell her.
    But Rigley said nothing about a woman being here, or anyone else, for that matter.
    Which didn’t explain why the fire was going when they got there.
    The conversation between Nolan and Rigley at the Pier had been a brief one. Rigley had wanted to continue the conversation elsewhere, out of the public eye, a sentiment Nolan couldn’t have shared more. Rigley mentioned this cottage of his as a possible meeting place and Nolan accepted, but suggested that the two of them not be seen leaving the restaurant together. So they’d agreed to meet at ten in the parking lot of the Target store on the way out of town; Nolan would then follow Rigley to the cottage on the Cedar River, between Iowa City and Port City. Which had given Nolan time to stop at the antique shop and fill Jon in.
    And now here he was with Rigley, at the cottage, with someone—some woman—listening on in another room.
    Rigley was behind the bar, fixing himself something. “What can I build you, Mr. Logan?”
    Logan was the name Nolan was using at the Pier.
    “Nothing,” Nolan said.
    “Come on, now,” Rigley said, with patronizing smile and tone to match. “I see no reason why we can’t be sociable. We’re going to be working together rather closely for the next few weeks, after all.”
    Nolan sighed. He plopped his ass down on the couch. The couch was close to the door. He unbuttoned his jacket and folded his arms to prevent the gun under his arm from showing. Between Rigley’s phony pleasant attitude and knowing somebody was in the next room, Nolan felt pretty uncomfortable. Rigley hadn’t turned on any lights yet, so there was just the light from the fire, which was short on illumination and long on creating a sinister, shadow- throwing atmosphere. Nolan said, “Make it a beer then.”
    Rigley brought Nolan a beer, pulled a straight-back chair from somewhere, and sat facing him. Looking down at him. All he lacks , Nolan thought, is his goddamn desk .
    “Before we begin, I think I should explain something,” Rigley said, sipping his drink, a Manhattan. “I have everything worked out. I know just how we can bring this off . . . simply, efficiently, safely and,