Hard Case Crime: The Vengeful Virgin

by Brewer, Gil

  “How much?”

  “Twenty bucks.”

  “You’re a real son of a bitch.”

  “All how you look at it. Twenty bucks is twenty bucks.”

  By now there was nothing to do but pay him and take the gun. I should never have come back. I should never have gone to him when I found the gun missing. I should have let it go. On the other hand, if I let it go now, he would crow all the more. I paid him and took the gun and left the place. I put the gun and the box of ammunition in the glove compartment of the Ford.

  I drove back home, trying to keep from thinking. I was so scared I could hardly drive.

  It was nine-thirty when I turned into the alley behind the apartment building. Cutting it almost too close. But I had to pick up some clothes I’d packed in a bag, and phone Mrs. Noxton at the store. That would be ticklish, and I wished I hadn’t put it off until now. I kept looking at my watch, checking the time, thinking: What’s she doing? Did she make it all right downtown, alone, without being seen? Is anybody there with her? Will she be able to get away? Will she lose her nerve?

  And I kept trying not to think something else that had occurred to me during the night. It kept coming back to me, hitting harder every time. What was Miraglia’s real interest? I couldn’t believe he was playing beagle just out of fondness for Victor Spondell. There had to be something else. Had he figured to latch onto some of the money, too? Then something struck me.

  Suppose Shirley and Miraglia were together on something, trying to screw me? Set me up for a patsy. Sure. It was crazy thinking. But you think that way just the same, because you don’t really know. You never know till you’ve got that money in your hands.

  I parked the car by the garage in the alley, and walked on around to the rear entrance. Inside, a hall led straight on through to the front entrance, and Miraglia was holding the door open for a cop.

  “Since his car’s not in the garage,” Miraglia said, “He’s not here.” His glasses glinted and gleamed as he talked mildly. The uniformed cop said nothing. Miraglia said, “Let’s go on up, all right?”

  Two men in plain clothes came in the front door behind the harness cop. I was in shadow behind the stair alcove. Miraglia said something I didn’t quite catch.

  One of the men in plain clothes said, “Well, we’ve got a warrant, anyway.”

  The other man chuckled.

  I didn’t wait for anything else.

  Coming out of the other end of the alley, I drove past on the street bisecting my street, and looked down toward the apartment house. Two police cruisers were parked out front. It had been that close. I could hardly breathe. Another harness bull stood outside by the cruisers.

  I kept going.

  I drove downtown somehow, without smashing into anybody, and parked across the street from the bank. On the way down, I thought I’d glimpsed Grace’s car, and I remembered what Shirley’d said last night, seeing a yellow car running up and down her street.

  This was it. They were on it, and we were running behind time.

  Maybe they already had Shirley.

  It was ten to ten. I had missed Shirley going into the bank. If she had gone into the bank.

  I was numb all over. They were in my apartment now. Then I remembered something, and it was as if the world tipped on its axis and sent me spinning off into black space. I remembered making lists of things, on paper, with a pencil, adding everything up to find a flaw.

  I remembered doing this twice.

  I remembered flushing the paper down the toilet once. What had I done with the other paper?

  I forced myself to stay calm. I lit a cigarette and fidgeted. Men and women filed in and out of the brass-trimmed glass bank doors. A uniformed guard lounged outside, looking up at the sky, scratched his chin, then went inside again. Traffic clogged the street. I was so damned worried I began talking to myself. It shouldn’t take her this long, if she was in there.

  All sorts of crazy things came to mind. Among them was the picture in my mind of a faceless man named Henry Lamphier, disturbed over the loss of his wife. He should be happy. They never were though. Another five minutes and I would have to go inside the bank and check. Then I saw her.

  She came out of the bank. She wore an aqua dress, and she looked terrific. It really packed a wallop, how I hadn’t seen her in days. She filled that dress. Her auburn hair shone in the bright sunlight. The pallor of her face was somehow strange in this bronzed country. She belonged in a bedroom, naked, on a bed.

  I had to get going. I thought of signaling her, but suddenly I couldn’t see anything except the bag she carried. I knew what was in that bag. It was shiny white leather. A rectangular-shaped small suitcase, with brass clasps. And all the feeling I’d had at seeing her suddenly changed and focused on that bag.

  She didn’t spot me.

  I flung open the door and waved. I called her name, but not loudly. I couldn’t shout at her. It would only draw attention. I got back under the wheel.

  She turned and walked down the street along the front of the bank. When she reached the alley, she hesitated again. She changed hands with the bag, looked up and down the street. Abruptly, she turned down the alley, and even from across the street, through traffic, I heard the sharp clack-clack-clack of her heels, echoing.

  I drove down the street to Seventh, turned left over toward First, and parked at the curb by the drugstore. Looking up along the sidewalk, I saw her come out of the alley and start down toward me. By now, I was soaking with sweat. I wanted to leap out of the car and run up the street to her.

  We didn’t have time for anything. The only break was the law didn’t know what car I was driving. As if that would matter, unless we got out of here fast.

  I watched her slim legs scissor along toward me.

  “Jack?”

  I snapped around in the seat. It was Grace. She had on a thin white sweater, with nothing underneath, and tight black shorts. She was big-bodied and her thighs plumped out under the tight rims of the shorts.

  “Jack? What are you doing?”

  She was on the sidewalk at the opposite side of the car. She opened the door and slid in across the seat and slammed the door. She pushed up close to me, her leg pressed against me, watching me.

  “Grace—get out.”

  “No.”

  “I’ll throw you out.”

  “What’s the matter with you?”

  I looked up the street. Shirley had seen me. She’d seen Grace get into the car as sure as hell. She had slowed her stride and I saw the frown on her face.

  “Jack, you’re acting awfully damned funny.”

  “Get out.”

  I didn’t know what to do.

  “I’m not going to get out. I’ve been following you. I was waiting at your place and I saw you drive in behind the apartments with this car. What are you doing, Jack?”

  I said, “You want me to wring your stupid neck?”

  She put one hand over her mouth. “Jack,” she said. “Were those policemen looking for you? Were they? I saw some policemen going inside.”

  I smelled the gin. This early in the morning and all full of gin.

  I looked back up the street. Shirley was crossing the street toward the car. She hesitated halfway across, looking at me, with her face pinched up.

  “Who’s that?” Grace said.

  Shirley did an about-face, and started back up the street. She really swung it hard. Clack-clack-clack.

  “Shirley!” I called.

  She stopped.

  “Shirley—come on.”

  She turned and started walking back toward the car. I had my eyes on that bag in her hand. My stomach was tight up, and aching with tension. I whirled and caught hold of Grace with both hands, and sank my fingers in, and shoved my face up close to hers.

  “I’ll kill you, Grace, I swear it—I’ll kill you if you don’t get out—now!”

  She saw something in my face.

  She began to cry. Her face pudged up and she burst in
to tears, with her mouth wailing. Just like her. She got out of the car like lightning and slammed the door.

  “Jack?” Shirley said from my side. Like ice.

  Her face had that look women get. Like you’re dead a long time and smell pretty bad, and they want to make sure they don’t step on you.

  “Come around and get in,” I said.

  She started around the front of the car.

  “Who the hell are you, darling?” Grace said to her. She stood there spraddle-legged, with her breasts stuck out, bawling.

  Shirley tried to get past her. I reached over and flung the goddamned door open. Shirley started for the door.

  “No, you don’t!” Grace said, and grabbed for Shirley.

  People were stopping on the sidewalk.

  Shirley turned and looked at Grace. Grace said something I didn’t get, but from the expression on a woman pedestrian’s face, I could tell it was something real filthy.

  Shirley hit her smack in the face with the white bag.

  It was all I needed. Two dames fighting. At a time like this. I slid across the seat. “Get in, Shirley!”

  Grace came at her, claws out. Shirley turned and jumped into the car. I started the engine and took off. Grace was standing back there on the street, yelling bloody murder. She started running after the car, then stopped, right in the middle of the street. Horns blared.

  I kept watching in the rear-view mirror. Grace turned and ran to the sidewalk, and off in the opposite direction.

  We drove along. “Who was that?”

  “Nobody. Forget it. A nutty girl I knew once.”

  I looked at her. She was sitting very straight and prim, with her skirt pulled down over her knees, knees together, looking out of the windshield. The white leather bag was between us on the seat, I let my hand touch it and the back of my neck got cold.

  “Everything go all right?” I said.

  I didn’t want to scare her yet. She didn’t say anything.

  I turned and said, “She’s a damned fool woman who refuses to leave me alone.” My voice rose. “She just happened along on the street. I couldn’t get rid of her.” I began to shout. “Good Christ, Shirley. I didn’t want her around, I knew her once a long time ago. Long before I met you. She won’t let me be!”

  My ears rang. She didn’t say a word.

  “Shirley,” I said, keeping it down. “I’m sorry she was there. I couldn’t help it. I did everything I could to get rid of her.”

  “That is not what I meant,” Shirley said.

  We drove along. She didn’t speak.

  “Shirley, for Christ’s sake. Shirley?”

  She said nothing.

  I wanted to stop the car and tear open the shiny white leather bag and look at what was inside.

  “Shirley?”

  Nothing.

  “Did it go all right, Shirley?”

  She just sat there.

  I slowed down and tried to drive very carefully. “Shirley?” I said. “It’s like this.” So I told her all about Grace; everything about her. It was something I should have done at the beginning, and let that be a lesson to me. I laid it on the line and dropped it in her lap. “She’s screwy. There was nothing I could do. What would you have me do?”

  She had nothing to say. I stopped the car and turned to look at her.

  “Shirley.” My voice was tight. “Did you or did you not get the money?”

  “What if I didn’t?”

  “Did you get it!”

  She didn’t look at me. I grabbed the bag and started opening it. The clamps were stuck. I tore at them.

  “There’s a key,” she said.

  “Where is it?”

  “I have it.”

  “Well, give it to me!”

  “Here.” She fished around in a small blue purse, and handed me a flat metal key. My hands were soaking wet and shaking. I couldn’t get it in the lock, then I did, and the bag popped open and money tumbled all over the seat between us. It was stacked neatly and it was all in paper-banded packets.

  “Jesus H. Christ.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “You made it,” I said, staring at the money.

  “Yes. That’s obvious, isn’t it.”

  “How much?”

  “All of it. Three hundred and forty...”

  “I told you not to take all of it!”

  “I wanted it all.”

  I stared at her. Well, what the hell did it matter now? She looked at me that way and said, “Was she nice in bed, Jack?”

  “Who?”

  “That girl? Was she hot? A good lay? Did she really love it up?”

  “Cut it out.”

  “I’m merely asking. I’m serious. She looked as if she could really bounce a bed.”

  “Shirley, cut it out!”

  “Don’t shout, darling. People will hear you. It’s embarrassing. It may not be to you, but it is to me.”

  She turned and looked at the windshield.

  I packed the money lovingly back into the shiny white leather bag, and snapped the lid shut.

  All three hundred thousand dollars of it.

  The key was in my hand. Make a gesture, I thought. Go ahead. I looked at the key. It was a hard thing to do.

  “Here,” I said. “You keep this.”

  She took the key daintily, without a word, and put it in her purse, and faced front. I reached out and touched her arm. It was like touching a stovepipe.

  “Shirley,” I said. “Honey. Please. Don’t—”

  She watched the windshield.

  I started the car and drove away, then remembered.

  “Where are your bags?”

  “At the Greyhound bus terminal. I checked them. I couldn’t possibly carry everything.”

  “We’ll pick them up.”

  I drove over there. She gave me the check. I felt frightened to leave her in the car alone with the money. What else could I do? Carry it with me? I went on in and got her bags, four of them, and put them in the back seat of the Ford. She hadn’t moved a muscle. We drove away.

  “I didn’t think you went for blondes,” she said. “I thought brunettes were your dish.”

  “Cut it out, Shirley.”

  “Did she like to do it with her clothes on or off?”

  “Stop it.”

  Her tone was flat. “You treated her awfully, Jack, really, you did. She was crying. She must have felt very bad. Is that any way to treat a girl?”

  I clamped my lips tight.

  “Jack.”

  I gripped the steering wheel, thinking about those cops back at the apartment.

  “Was she as good as I am?” When I didn’t answer, she said, “I really want to know, Jack. Honestly. Tell me, just between us—was she better?”

  I gnawed the inside of my cheek.

  “I suppose we all have our points,” she said, “You called her Grace. Grace is such a nice name. It has a certain fillip to it, don’t you think? I mean, it’s—well, bold, you might say, but not too bold. There’s a certain feeling of mystery—”

  “Please, Shirley. You’ve ragged me enough.”

  “It’s just that I’m interested. It’s a wonder you never mentioned her to me. She has a beautiful body. She didn’t wear falsies, either. Of course, neither do I. But hers were a little bigger, I think. But, then.”

  I waited. She didn’t speak for a moment. I drove toward the outskirts of town. I had wanted everything to run smoothly between us. It wasn’t going to be that way. I didn’t know how to tell her we were really running now because we had to run.

  Only I had the money.

  I’d thought “I”—not we.

  She said something. Then she said, “Oh, darling.” Then she said, “Please...” It came out as a kind of sob. She moved across the seat and I slowed the car, wondering, What now?

  She shoved the white bag on the floor and put her arms around me.

  “I believe you,” she said. “I believe you.”

  She
kissed the side of my face, with her arms around my neck, purring to herself the way she did, and half-kneeling on the seat. “Don’t you see how it was?” she said. “I just couldn’t stand it. That’s all. I love you, Jack—I love you.” She kissed me on the mouth, and hugged me some more. “I couldn’t stand it. I love you so much—so much.”

  I got a look at her eyes and they were mad for a second. I mean mad, not angry. Then that went away.

  “I believed you right away,” she said. “But the thought of sharing you with something like that—with anyone—it would be too much.”

  “You never shared me.”

  “I know, Jack. I’m sorry. Can’t you see?”

  “I guess.”

  “Don’t try to make me feel worse, now.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I wanted to hurt you—to make you feel as bad as I felt.” She leaned in tightly against me, kissing me, and purring. I nearly drove the car off the street. “All right, now?” she said. There was something husky in her tone.

  “Yeah. I couldn’t do anything with her, Shirley.”

  “I understand.”

  “We can talk sensibly now?”

  “Yes.” She knelt there on the seat with her arms around me, her eyes shining. Her hair was tumbled down around one side of her face. “You’re my man,” she said. “And I love you.”

  I patted her thigh.

  “I got the money without any trouble at all,” she said. “Isn’t it really better getting it all, instead of leaving some behind? We’ll never come back for it. Don’t you see?”

  “It was the chance itself,” I said. “I wasn’t sure you could bring it off. It doesn’t matter now.”

  She sank back on the seat, watching me, smiling with a kind of secretiveness. She looked a million. Ten million. I felt really good all of a sudden.

  “Shirley?”

  “Yes?”

  I told her about Miraglia and the police at my apartment, and how we had to run for sure, now. How there was no other way out.

  Fourteen

  She said a lot of things, and carried on some, but I finally got her calmed down. She was scared. But so was I.

  What scared me was the thought of losing that money.

  Boiled down, nothing else mattered. That much money was worth being scared about, and it was worth taking chances for. I could have spent my whole life in the store and never managed to gouge even a small part of what we had out of sales.