Corey decided not to comment.

“On the other hand,” Grogan went on, “you can’t go to work if I don’t give you nothing to work with.”

Then it was quiet again. Corey sat and waited.

Walter Grogan came across the room and stood beside the ebony armchair. He ran his hand along the glistening black wood. And then, his voice low, the words coming slowly, “Whoever hired them hoods, it was someone playing for high stakes. Someone who knows—” and he stopped.

Corey said, “Knows what?”

Grogan took a deep breath, let it out. “Some lettuce. I got some lettuce put away.”

“In a vault?” Corey asked. “Safe deposit?”

“Safer than that.”

“Stashed?”

Grogan nodded. He kept rubbing his hand along the back of the ebony armchair. He said, “It’s what they call unlisted assets. Or let’s call it unreported income. From certain deals I’ve been in on. All paid off in cash.”

“It’s warm money?”

“It’s very warm,” Grogan said. “Piled up over a period of years. If the government ever gets wise, I’d pull ten to twenty or maybe even twenty to forty.”

“Just for tax evasion?”

“They get me for tax evasion, that’s only the beginning. Then they really go to work. Them Federal agents, they get onto something, it’s like white on rice. So one thing leads to another. Some joker gets scared and opens his mouth and that drags in some other joker and so on. And finally they wrap it up; they get all the money tabulated—who paid off and why.”

“It comes to a lotta money?”

“Plenty.”

“How much?”

“I’m not gonna tell you how much,” Grogan said. “You got a gleam in your eye already. Next thing you’ll ask me where it’s stashed.”

Corey ignored that. He thought aloud, “A bundle of money hidden somewhere—”

And then they looked at each other. Grogan said, “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

“Well, it’s an angle.”

“You’re damn right it’s an angle,” Grogan said. “There’s people who know my financial setup. People close to me and maybe others not so close to me. So let’s say one of them latches on to an idea. Just plays around with it. Tells himself that Grogan don’t live in a mansion and Grogan don’t play the races and what it all comes down to, Grogan ain’t a big spender. So what does Grogan do with all his money? Christ’s sake, of all the money Grogan’s been making, there’s gotta be more than what’s in the bank and what’s in stocks and bonds. Sure, there’s gotta be a lot more than that. But where?