Hard Cash Read Online Free PDF

most importantly, profitably. Extremely profitably. All you will have to do is follow my instructions explicitly, and everything will . . .”
    Nolan stood.
    He walked to the fireplace, leaned against it, made Rigley turn to look at him. Looking down on Rigley, he said, “Make all the suggestions you want. But no instructions.”
    “Mr. Logan, I . . .”
    “You’re a banker. You know everything there is to know about banks. Except one thing. How to rob them. That’s my department.”
    “You don’t understand—you see, I have everything worked out. . . .”
    “You’re the one who doesn’t understand. Either I’m in charge, or I’m out.”
    Rigley thought that over for a moment, then shrugged his acceptance of Nolan’s terms. “You’re right. I came to you because you have expertise in this particular area of endeavor. I wanted a professional on the team . . . otherwise I could have just as well settled for some lowlife out of a riverfront dive. So I must agree. You are the one most qualified to make the decisions in our forthcoming venture.” He made a toasting gesture, drained the remains of his Manhattan, and rose and fixed himself another.
    But when he came back from the bar, he had more with him than a fresh drink: he was carrying a manila folder, which he handed to Nolan, saying, “I think you’ll find this of interest.”
    Nolan emptied his beer in two long swigs, set the empty can on the hearth, took the folder. He was getting more and more irritated with Rigley’s constant barrage of bullshit, and was wondering if the guy was a little drunk or was just naturally a pompous ass. With a bank president, it was hard to tell. He looked in the folder.
    It contained photographs of Nolan and Jon, separately and together, taken at the Pier, outside the antique shop, and elsewhere around Iowa City. There was also the newspaper clipping that included the composite drawings of both Nolan and Jon (neither very good, but a resemblance could be seen, if you tried hard enough) and a Xerox copy of a signed statement by Rigley in which he stated his belief that “Logan” and Jon were two of the three men who had robbed the Port City bank two years ago.
    “My lawyer has a duplicate folder,” Rigley said. “Sealed, of course. He won’t open it unless anything should happen to me, in which case . . . well, I’m sure you can guess where the contents of the folder would go.”
    Nolan said, “I don’t like blackmailers.”
    “I don’t mean it to be blackmail. This is simply a matter of business. If it was blackmail, I wouldn’t be offering you money, would I? And there is a great deal of money to be made here for you and that young friend of yours. There were four of you involved when you took three quarters of a million dollars from my bank two years ago. This time, there would be only a three-way split, a third for me, a third each for you and your young friend. The purpose of the folder is one of leverage—to convince you to help me, join me in this undertaking. And to remind you that while I may, in the execution of said undertaking, choose to defer my position of leadership to you, I am still , in reality, in the overview, in charge.”
    Nolan folded the folder lengthwise several times and walked over to Rigley and swatted him in the face with it a few times.
    “You,” Nolan said, “are in charge of shit.”
    And he hit him a few more times with the folded folder.
    “Stop it, stop it!” Nolan had stopped slapping him with the folder, but Rigley was cowering anyway, holding his hands in front of his face like a man trying to keep out the sun.
    Nolan grabbed a handful of Rigley’s expensive suit coat and lifted him off the couch and shook him a little. “Listen to me, asshole. You’re in so far over your fucking head, you can’t even tell you’re drowning.”
    “Don’t . . . don’t hurt me.”
    “Don’t hurt you?” He thrust him back against the couch, and Rigley bounced limply, like someone