Scam

Belcher. I know I’ve already said this, but you’ll pardon me if I say it again. If you’ve never been, arraigned on a triple homicide, you probably can’t know how I feel. But, boy, was that a beautiful thing. Sticking it to Belcher, and MacAullif holding the knife.
    Yeah, that was a nice touch too. He was out to get me because of MacAullif, so it was only fair MacAullif get him.
    I asked MacAullif, by the way, before it went down, whether he would mind. Nailing Belcher on TV, giving him a reason to hate his guts. MacAullif couldn’t have cared less. His opinion was, Belcher already hated him and was out to get him for no good reason, what difference would it make if he actually had one?
    I suppose that’s true. Still, I told MacAullif to watch his back. And he looked at me as if to say, “Gee, what a bright idea, I never would have thought of it,” which was about par for the course.
    As for Amy Greenberg, it’s just like I said. I sympathized with her to a point. As a young woman, dismissed and abused by the men in the company, I could root for her to win. But the minute she starts killing people, I don’t care how politically correct her cause, she happens to have lost my support. If that sounds overly sarcastic, it’s only because there are people who wouldn’t agree, indeed, who would be angry at me for exposing the killer and damaging her cause. Just as I would have damaged someone’s cause had the killer been black or gay.
    Sorry, gang. Call it as you see it, play it as it lays.
    Anyway, that’s the wrap-up for Amy Greenberg. She was all, “I didn’t do it,” and MacAullif was all, “Oh, yes, you did.” And with what he has on tape, there’s no way she isn’t going down.
    As for Sergeant Belcher, he’s already gone. In a manner of speaking. Last I heard, he’d been transferred off homicide, pending investigation by Internal Affairs.
    And his buddy, Martinez, has been transferred out of the evidence room. There’s something for you. I more or less made that happen, and the fact is, I never met the man. Don’t even know what he looks like. I could bump into him on the street tomorrow and I wouldn’t have a clue. A somewhat unsettling thought, considering how he must feel about me. Unless I want to spend the rest of my life flinching every time I see a Hispanic man with a limp, perhaps I’d better ask MacAullif if he has a photo on file.
    Aside from that, I’m feeling fine. And getting off the hook for murder is just part of it. I also might get paid. Richard Rosenberg says I do indeed have a claim against the widow Pritchert for the money her husband owed me, and has offered to facilitate my collecting it, just for the fun of bopping her attorneys around.
    As for Miriam Pritchert, last I heard she and Marty Rothstein had become an item. So maybe it always was more than just stock.
    Speaking of stock, there’s another stockholders meeting coming up. I know because I got a proxy in the mail. I can’t decide if I should send it in, or show up in person to vote my one share. Hell, maybe I could swing the meeting, wind up chairman of the board.
    Yeah, I’m in a pretty good mood.
    But the main thing I’m happy about is Sergeant Belcher. TV star extraordinaire. Ask any asshole, indeed. Boy, how he fell for the bait. All it took was one phone call from Chris Harris from Channel 2 News. And what yeoman work Chris did. Aside from the phone call, he was responsible for all the TV crews being there. Which was pretty damn nice of him, giving up the exclusive in order to give us bigger play. Anyway, he was the one who made the anonymous phone call, tipping the cops off that I was bribing and intimidating witnesses and was out at Amy Greenberg’s house.
    And Belcher did the rest. Nice bit of irony there. Because that’s why Cranston Pritchert came to me in the first place. He thought he was the victim of a scam. Only he wasn’t. As it turned out, no one pulled a scam on him at all. No, the only scam in the case was the one I pulled on Belcher.
    And he never suspected. Never had a clue. Poor guy. Should have been a bit more like Cranston Pritchert. Just a little more suspicious.
    But he never stopped to consider.
    Never once did the thought occur to him.
    I’m being set up .