by Ed McBain
This is what’s nice about fucking a stranger, Rafe thinks.
She doesn’t bring up the wife again until half an hour later. They always bring up the wife after they’ve been royally fucked, Rafe thinks. Never miss an opportunity to bring up the wife. It’s like they’re thinking, Well, you son of a bitch, now that you’ve had your way with me, let’s discuss this small matter of the little woman back home. They never put it quite that way, of course, he has never met a woman that stupid. Actually, there’s no woman on earth who will ever say exactly what she means. With women, you’ve always got to decode what they’re saying. If a woman says, “Do you think Hawaii is really as nice as they say it is?” what she really means is “I’ve booked a room for two weeks at the Royal Tahitian.” That is the way women talk. The only time women talk straight is when they’re fucking. But that’s not the woman talking, it’s the cunt. The cunt is saying fuck me, not the woman.
That was half an hour ago.
Now it’s the woman talking.
“So tell me,” Jennifer says, “is Atlanta a nice place to live?”
Meaning, “So tell me about this goddamn wife of yours in Atlanta.”
“It’s okay, I guess,” he says.
“Did you ever live anyplace else?”
He almost tells her he spent a year and four months in Reidsville, Georgia, at the correctional facility there.
Instead, he says, “Born and raised there.”
“Your wife, too?”
Here it comes, he thinks.
“No, she’s originally from Peekskill. That’s upstate New York.”
“So how’d she end up in Atlanta?”
Meaning “So how did you meet this fucking wife of yours?”
“She was going to college in Athens. University of Georgia. That’s about sixty miles northeast of Atlanta.”
“So what’d you do? Meet at a prom or something?”
“No, my sister was going to school there, too.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
She nods. She is sitting beside him on the bed, cross-legged, still naked. Her lips are only a trifle pursed. She is thinking this over. About to get pissed off that she went to bed with a married man. And enjoyed it. All of this is beginning to eat at her.
“You are so beautiful,” he says.
Rescue operation.
“Mmm,” she says, and nods again, and pulls a little face.
He is about to get kicked out of here in the middle of the night unless he says something very smart very soon. He knows she won’t believe him if he tells her he doesn’t love his wife, which isn’t true, anyway, or at least he doesn’t think it’s true. He has been to bed with a lot of different women since he met Carol, but never once has he ever stopped loving her, he supposes, although he has to admit that never once has he ever felt like this in bed with another woman. Just lying here beside Jennifer, he is beginning to get hard again. And this is without touching her again or anything, this is just remembering what happened half an hour ago, thirty-five minutes ago. He wonders if he should call her attention to the fact that he is getting hard again, give a wink in the direction of old Willie there, who has a mind of his own, and who certainly isn’t thinking about Carol in a motel someplace on I-495.
“Let me tell you something,” he says.
“Sure, tell me something,” she says.
Meaning, “But make it fast because you’re going to be out of here in ten minutes flat.”
“The minute I saw you…”
She is already rolling her eyes in disbelief.
“…I knew you were going to mean more to me than any woman I’d ever met in my life.”
Meaning what? he wonders.
She seems to be wondering the same thing. A moment ago she was turned slightly away from him, sitting there like a doubting Indian maiden with a black bush but incongruous blue eyes and blonde hair, legs crossed at the ankles, head erect and staring straight ahead, hands palm up in her lap, but now she turns her head to him and looks him directly in the eyes, wanting to know—though not asking—what he means by what he just said. Is this some bullshit line he gives to small-town girls all over the south and southwest? What exactly does he mean when he says she will mean more to him than any other woman he’s ever met, or words to that effect?
“That’s why I called you,” he says. “I couldn’t let you just walk out of my life,” he says. “I had to see you again, Jennifer. And as it turns out, I was right, wasn’t I?” he asks rhetorically. “I have never in my life felt this way with another woman.”
Meaning exactly what? her eyes are still asking.
“I mean about someone,” he says. “I’ve never felt this way about another woman,” he says. “The way I feel about you,” he says.
“And how exactly is it that you feel?” she asks.
She almost sounds prim. Almost sounds like a schoolteacher. He wonders if she’s a schoolteacher. He realizes that he knows hardly anything at all about her, and here he is telling her he’s never felt this way about another woman, whereas even he himself doesn’t know what the hell that means. But she’s waiting for an answer.
He is tempted merely to nod at old Willie down there, who is now standing erect after merely hearing Rafe’s feeble attempt at describing how he feels, present the evidence of a rock-hard cock to the court not forty minutes after he and Jennifer fucked for the second time, I mean what does that have to say about how a man feels about a woman, huh, Jennifer?
“Does anyone call you Jenny?” he asks, and places the tip of his forefinger on one rounded knee.
“No,” she says, and brushes his hand aside.
“Jenny,” he says, “I feel as if—”
“Don’t call me Jenny,” she says. “My name is Jennifer.”
“I’m sorry, Jennifer,” he says.
“Yes,” she says, and nods.
“What do you want me to say?” he asks.
“You’re the one doing the talking.”
“I’m married,” he says, “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t expect to meet you, I didn’t expect to fall in love with you, I’m sorry all to hell, but these things—”
“You what?” she says.
He blinks at her. What was it he just said?
She seems to notice his cock. At last. She glances at it slyly, but does not reach to touch it.
“Say it again,” she says.
“I’ve never felt this way before in my life,” he says.
“That’s not what you said.”
“What did I say?”
“You said you didn’t expect to fall in love with me.”
“That’s true, I didn’t.”
“Say it again.”
“I didn’t expect to fall in love with you.”
“Are you in love with me?”
“I think I’m in love with you, yes.”
“Think?” she says, and seizes his cock.
“I’m in love with you, yes,” he says.
“Say it.”
“I love you.”
“Say ‘I love you, Jennifer.’”
“I love you, Jennifer.”
“Say it again.”
“I love you, Jennifer.”
“Again.”
“I love you, Jennifer. I—”
“What about your wife?”
“Fuck her,” he says.
“Fuck me instead,” she says, and rolls onto him.
Afterward, he begins to learn a little bit about her. She’s been divorced for a year and a half, she tells him, used to be married to a lawyer who still practices in Sarasota. Was married for three years before she discovered he was playing around with this redhead in his office, another lawyer, who wore minis shorter than Ally McBeal ever did.
“Which is one of the reasons I didn’t want to start up with you,” she says.
“Because I’m a redhead?” he asks, which he isn’t. “Or because I wear minis?”
“Because you’re a marrie
d man who plays around,” she says.
“All married men play around.”
“You’d better not ever cheat on me,” she says.
“We’re not married,” he says.
“But you love me, right?” she says.
“It would appear so, yes.”
“There’s that tic again.”
“I love you, yes,” he says.
He’s beginning to believe it himself.
She tells him that she’s been working in a jewelry boutique out on Willard, which is how she happens to know Ronnie’s Lounge, but that she’s been thinking of maybe starting her own business, if she can get her wonderful ex to make his damn alimony payments when he’s supposed to…
“I’m supposed to get a thousand dollars a month, but he’s always late with his check,” she says.
“Yeah,” Rafe says.
He’s thinking the one thing he doesn’t need in his life is paying alimony to an ex-wife, no matter how much you love another woman, if in fact you do love her, now that Willie has shrunken back into his shell again. She does indeed have a splendid rack, though, and a lovely ass, and he can’t get over the blonde hair and black bush, which he still thinks is entirely trusting of her to expose herself that way. He is beginning to think he’s never been quite this intimate with another woman in his life, which is perhaps what he meant when he said he’d never felt this way about another woman, which maybe is being in love, after all. He is beginning to get a little confused.
“Did you ever go to bed with Alice?” she asks out of the blue.
This is now three o’clock in the morning. Around three in the morning, they all ask you out of the blue to start cataloging all the women you’ve ever slept with. He’s almost forgotten this about women. You have to know this about women if you ever hope to survive. He’s glad he’s remembering it now. Before it’s too late. Too late for what? he wonders. And feels confused again.
“No, hey,” he says, “what kind of a bounder do you take me for?”
“Bounder, huh?” she says, and giggles.
It pleases him that he can make a beautiful woman like this one giggle. Not that Carol isn’t beautiful. It’s just that she doesn’t giggle much, anymore. Well, two growing boys, who would giggle anymore?
“A bounder and a rounder, too,” he says, pressing his luck, and damn if she doesn’t giggle again. “But I would never hit on my own sister-in-law.”
“Then what was your truck doing parked outside her house?” she asks.
“I told you. I stopped by to see her. I do that all the time. She’s my sister-in-law!”
“Then why wouldn’t she let me in?”
“Because…”
“Because the two of you were alone in there. And if I know you...”
“No, no, we weren’t alone.”
“Then who was there?”
“The police.”
“The police? Why?”
So he has to explain that his little niece and nephew were kidnapped…
“Get out!”…and that the people who kidnapped them asked for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills, which the police supplied for Alice to drop off Friday morning…
“That poor woman!” Jennifer says.
“Yeah, and she still hasn’t got the kids back,” Rafe says.
“What do you mean the police supplied it? Where’d they get that kind of money?”
So he has to explain that the Treasury Department supplied the bills for another kidnapping down here a couple of years ago, and that the bills were these counterfeits called super-bills…
“Get out!” she says again.…which are so good it’s impossible to tell them from the real thing.
“Which is what I tried to explain to these former business associates of mine,” Rafe says, “but they wouldn’t buy into it.”
“Wouldn’t buy into what?”
“Well, these people are criminals, am I right?” Rafe says. “The ones who kidnapped Alice’s kids?”
“So?”
“So what harm would it do if someone took that money from them? I mean, they’re criminals, am I right? Serve them right, am I right?”
“I’m still not following.”
“And also, the money is fake besides.”
She shakes her head, totally bewildered.
“What we’ve got,” he explains, “is a pair of chicks sitting out there on two hundred and fifty grand in fake money so good you can’t tell it from the real thing. So what if some enterprising souls relieved them of that money? It’s fake, anyway, am I right? And they’re criminals in the bargain. So where’s the harm?”
“Two chicks, huh?” Jennifer asks.
“It would appear so, yes.”
“All we have to do is find them,” she says.
“That’s all, baby,” he says.
For some reason, he’s getting hard again.
Alice’s phone rings at 8:45 A.M.
Charlie is still asleep on the living room sofa. She grabs for the receiver at once.
“Hello?”
“Alice, it’s Frank. How are you?”
Her boss at Lane Realty.
“Fine, Frank.”
“How’s your foot?”
“Okay.”
“Are you able to get around?”
“Pretty much so.”
“Do you think you’ll be coming in today?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Still in pain, are you?”
“No, Frank, it’s just… the foot’s in a cast, you know…”
“Yes, so I understand.”
“…and it’s a little clumsy driving. Maybe Aggie can handle any appointments I have for today…”
“Is that what you’d like me to do?”
“Yes, Frank.”
“Give these various listings to Aggie?”
“I’m sure she can handle them.”
“When do you think you’ll be coming back to work, Alice?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Sundays are big, too.”
“Yes, I know.”
“O-kay, Alice,” he says, and sighs heavily. “Let me know when you’re ready to come back, will you?”
“I’ll let you know, Frank.”
“Thanks,” he says. “Get better.”
And hangs up.
They know the blue Impala was followed yesterday, but they do not yet know that Avis has given up the license plate number. Even so, they are reluctant to drive the car again, or even to leave it where they’ve parked it on the mainland. They check the Yellow Pages under CAR RENTAL AGENCIES, find the nearest location for a Hertz place, and call to reserve a car for Clara Washington. It is Christine who arrives at the Henderson Grove outlet in a taxi that morning.
She shows the clerk behind the counter the same fake driver’s license, and charges the car rental to the same fake American Express card. The man from whom they purchased the credit card in New Orleans told them it was a “thirty-dayer,” his exact words, meaning it would be good for thirty days before Amex recognized it as a phony. He assured them that the driver’s license, however—which also cost them a sizable bundle—would never be challenged. Christine doesn’t know that the FBI has already flagged both the license and the credit card. But in any event, the Hertz people say nothing about her credentials, and she drives off in a sporty new red Ford Taurus.
There have been a lot of bank holdups in the state of Florida during the past year or so, and a big sign at the entrance to Southwest Federal cautions all customers to remove hats, sunglasses, or kerchiefs before approaching any of the tellers’ windows. Christine takes off her own sunglasses the moment she steps into the lobby. A uniformed guard at the door gives her the once-over, but she surmises he’s scrutinizing her boobs rather than her potential as a bank robber.
She chooses a black teller, a woman like herself. HENRIETTA LEWIS, her little name plaque announces in white letters on black. Sometimes choosing a sister backfires.
You get a black with attitude, she’ll give another black more grief than any white person in the whole wide world. But this one greets Christine with a cheery smile.
Christine is carrying $5,000 in hundred-dollar bills, five of them in the bill compartment of her wallet. The cab driver who drove her to the Hertz place accepted one of those bills with a pained expression not half an hour ago, when he nonetheless made change for her. For his trouble, she gave him a big tip and a leg show as she got out of the taxi. She now removes three more of those bills from the wallet, slides them onto the marble counter, and says, “May I have these in tens and twenties, please.”
Henrietta smiles, and picks up one of the bills.
She notices at once that this is not one of the new hundreds with the oversized picture of Benjamin Franklin on it. There are still many of these old hundreds in circulation; it will in fact take years before they’re all replaced by the Federal Reserve. Henrietta checks these older bills more carefully than she does the Big Bens because she knows there are a lot of fakes out there. The American hundred-dollar bill is the most widely used piece of currency in the world, and hence the most counterfeited.
She holds it to the light to check the security strip along its edge, sees the repeated USA100USA100USA100USA100, picks up the second bill to perform the same check and then something catches her eye in the sequence of serial numbers, and she frowns slightly— which Christine catches even though it lasts for less than maybe five seconds.
“Excuse me one minute, miss, okay?” Henrietta says, and leaves the teller’s window, and goes to where a bald-headed white man wearing a blue seersucker suit is sitting behind a desk near the vault. Christine sees her handing one of the bills across the desk to him. She wonders if she should run. The white man looks over to where she’s standing. Henrietta is handing him the second bill now. Let’s get out of here, Christine thinks. Just walk slowly to the door, smile at the uniformed guard there, go out to where she’s parked the red Taurus, and split, sister!
The bald-headed manager, or whatever he is, gets up from his desk, smiles at Christine where she is still standing at the teller’s window, and goes to a paneled walnut door. He disappears from sight behind it. Henrietta walks back to the teller’s cage.