With all that money she could travel to Florida or California, buy a new car, a whole new wardrobe of dresses that would make men notice her at last. She could leave the dingy apartment where she was wasting her life away—leave and be free.
On Sunday night, as the last piece of her plan clicked into place, Joyce Ireland decided to steal the bank deposit.
The man with the bushy eyebrows did not appear on Monday or Tuesday, and for a time she began to think it had been all her imagination, that he never had planned to rob her in the elevator. She became nervous and irritable at work as she waited for “The Man with the Eyebrows” to reappear, and one day even Mr. Melrose was moved to comment on her mood.
“What’s the matter, Joyce?” he asked after one of her outbursts. “Have a fight with your boyfriend?”
She wanted to tell him that his remark showed how little he knew or cared about her private life, but she held her tongue. “I just have a little headache,” she answered finally. “It’s nothing.”
Mr. Melrose was big and jolly and red-faced, and most customers seemed to like him. Sometimes they still liked him even after he’d sent collectors to their homes or started garnishing their salaries.
“Take the rest of the afternoon off if you’d like,” he suggested with rare benevolence. “Tuesday’s always pretty slow.”
“Thanks, but I’ll be all right.”
Nothing happened on Wednesday either, and she took to watching for the bushy-eyebrowed man on her lunch hour, hoping to see him somewhere on the street. But he did not reappear. By Thursday she was about to abandon the careful preparations she’d been making each day and forget the whole thing.
But Thursday was the 15th of October, and she knew the 1st and 15th brought even more payments than the usual payday. By noon there were people lined up with their payment books and their money, and by 2:30 Mr. Melrose was out of his office asking the other girl, “How much cash have we taken in so far today, Sue?”
The girl, a dumb brunette whom Joyce despised, looked at the column and replied, “Just $5,275, Mr. Melrose.”
He nodded. “Joyce, you’d better go down with it now. I get nervous with that much cash in the office.”
She nodded and picked up the big handbag she’d bought only a few days earlier. Then she waited while the brunette stuffed the money and checks and deposit slips into the familiar brown envelope. “Here you are,” Sue said finally, handing it over.
Joyce took the envelope and her bag and left the office, walking down the hall to the elevator as she had so many times before. As she stood alone waiting for the elevator to reach her floor, she’d half forgotten about the man with the bushy eyebrows. It wasn’t until she stepped into the car that he suddenly appeared and hurried in behind her. She felt her heart begin to thump with excitement.
There was only one other passenger in the elevator, an elderly woman who would be no protection at all. If he was ever going to do it this would be the day. She clutched the fat brown envelope closer.
The elevator made no other stops as it dropped steadily toward the ground floor. Just the three of them, silent passengers in a sealed world. Joyce waited.
The man shifted his feet a little and cleared his throat. The elderly woman simply waited. The elevator bumped to a stop on the ground floor and the doors slid open. There was the busy lobby, the bank—and nothing had happened.
The man smiled and allowed the elderly woman to step out. Joyce started to follow, and then he clipped her on the jaw with his fist.
It happened so fast she had no time to think. She fell sprawling out of the elevator as he snatched the brown envelope from her suddenly limp hands. Then he was running, and the elderly woman was screaming, and hands were grasping at Joyce.
“You all right, lady?”
She tried to talk, to wipe the blur from her eyes, and she couldn’t. For a moment she thought her jaw was broken, but then words came. “Money—he took the money—”
“Don’t worry, lady. They’ll get him.”
She put a hand to her jaw, feeling for the first time the beginning of a dull throbbing pain. Her next thought was for her handbag, and she clutched it to her. “It was the bank deposit,” she managed to say as two men helped her to her feet. “He got away with it all.”
A policeman came into the lobby, apparently summoned from traffic duty. “You all right—not hurt?”
“He—he hit me on the jaw, but I don’t think it’s broken.”
“The guy got away, but there’s an alarm out for him. What did he look like?”
“Tall, bushy eyebrows, black hair. About thirty-five.”
“Ever see him before?”
“I—” She hesitated only an instant. “No, not that I remember.”
He was writing it all down. “Okay, lady. Now how much money did he get?”
“Over five thousand. I forget the exact amount.”
“We’d better go up to your office,” he said, taking her arm.
Upstairs, Mr. Melrose went into a state of panic. He barely asked how Joyce was feeling before he started pacing the office floor and wringing his hands. “What will they say in New York?” he mumbled. Worldwide Finance’s home office was located there. “They’ll think I don’t know how to manage this place. They’ll ask why I trusted so much money to an office girl.”
“There was nothing I could do, Mr. Melrose! He took me so by surprise.” Her jaw was beginning to swell now, and she resented his attitude. It only justified in her mind what she had done.
The policeman took down the exact amount of the loss and went away. The brunette followed Joyce into the restroom and tried to soothe her, applying a cold towel to her swollen jaw. Finally, when she was alone, Joyce stole a glance into her large handbag. The original brown envelope with its $5,275 deposit nestled safety in the bottom, hidden beneath cigarettes and Kleenex and a key case.
She smiled as she imagined the robber’s face when he opened the envelope he had taken and found all those neatly cut pieces of newspaper.
Joyce spent the evening in her apartment, nursing her throbbing jaw with cold compresses. She’d counted the money as soon as she arrived home, and now she had it safely hidden inside a sealed plastic pouch in the bathroom toilet tank. It would be best, she knew, to keep it hidden for a time before spending any of it. No need to flaunt it immediately and attract suspicion. She knew there was always the possibility the robber would be caught and tell the police about the cut-up newspapers, but then it would still be only his word against hers. She was certain no one in the office had seen her make the switch in envelopes as she stepped into the hall. After all, she’d been practicing it every day that week without being detected.
The robbery rated a brief mention on the local news broadcast that evening, and the following day there was a half-column story buried on a back page of the paper. Loan offices and finance companies were being held up nearly every week, and there were no unusual angles to this one, not from the paper’s point of view. Joyce sighed over her coffee and decided to call in sick. It was a Friday and she felt like having the weekend to herself. Her jaw still ached, and Mr. Melrose expressed no surprise when she told him she’d be staying home till Monday.
“Take care of yourself,” he managed to say. “You’re more important than the money.”
She snorted as she hung up. He must have almost choked on that line!
She spent the rest of the day relaxing and treating her jaw, which seemed a bit better in the afternoon. The swelling had gone down, and a couple of aspirins relieved the ache. She was even thinking about going out to a movie or phoning a girl friend when the doorbell rang.
“Yes?” she spoke through the intercom.
“Police, Miss Ireland. We have a few more questions.”
She sighed and pushed the buzzer, releasing the lock of the front door. In a few moments there was a knock on her apartment door and she opened it without hesitation.
She gasped and tried to slam it shut but he was
too fast for her. It was “The Man with the Eyebrows.” His foot in the door, he shoved her back. She opened her mouth to scream and he quickly covered her mouth with a dirty sweating palm.
“No more, little lady, or I’ll break that jaw for good!”
She struggled, trying to get free, biting, clawing, but he held her fast. “I want the money. I came for the money and I want it. Where is it?”
She moaned under his hand and he took it away slowly. “No tricks now!”
“I—my arm! You’re breaking it!”
“I said no tricks, if you know what’s good for you. Now, where’s the money?”
The pain in her arm was excruciating, but somehow she had to bluff him. “Didn’t you get enough yesterday?”
He gave her a violent push that sent her flying across the room to land on the sofa. She turned and twisted, sucking in her breath for a scream—and then she saw his knife.
He held it loosely in one hand, moving it just enough to catch the glimmers of afternoon sunlight through her window. “I’d hate to cut you up, little lady. You know what I got yesterday. Newspapers! Somebody took the money and it could only be you. I’m damned if I’m going to run from the cops for a job I didn’t even pull!”
“If there was no money in the envelope I’m as surprised as you are,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “I didn’t make up the deposit—the other girl did.”
She started to rise from the sofa, but he took a step forward and she changed her mind. Now that she had a good look at him, he wasn’t nearly as dangerous as he’d been in those first moments. He still wasn’t good-looking, but the bushy eyebrows helped to accent his deep brown eyes. His jaw was set and firm, the jaw of a fighter. “Cut the stalling and tell me where it is,” he said, but his voice was just a bit softer, and the knife, still in his hand, was not quite so menacing.
“I saw you in the elevator,” she managed to say. “Last week. I didn’t tell the police that.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because you were planning to steal the money yourself, that’s why.”
She didn’t answer that. Instead, she asked, “What made you pick on me?”
He shrugged. “I saw you in the elevator.” Then, his eyes hardening a bit, he said, “Let’s cut the talk now. Give me the money.”
“I don’t have it. The other girl must have switched envelopes.”
“For what reason? So the bank would get cut-up newspaper?” He was growing impatient, and the knife moved upward.
Staring at it, Joyce knew she had only two real choices—give him the money and see her dream collapse, or risk the chance that he might kill her. And once she had given him the money, she could not even tell the police without implicating herself. He had her in much the same position she imagined him to be in. So it was give him the money—or—a flash of inspiration!—offer him more money.
“What if I could get even more for you?” she asked softly. “Would you let me keep some then?”
“More? What do you mean, more?”
“If I took more from the office. If I took another bank deposit and just ran with it.”
“And have the cops after you?”
“What choice do I have? If I give you the money, I’ve got nothing.”
He frowned down at her, not fully understanding. “You’re a stupid broad, you know that? The cops would grab you in no time.”
“Look, I’m offering you a deal. Take it or leave it.”
“Spell it out.”
“I’ll get an even larger amount of money for you. And you let me keep what I already have.”
“When?”
“Monday. As soon as the office opens.”
He hesitated, but she could see he was thinking it over. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“What can I do? Tell the police and implicate myself? If I tell them I’ll lose the money anyway. It would be the same as giving it to you.”
“Show me the money,” he said quietly after a moment.
“You’ll take it.”
He put away the knife. “If I’m trusting you, I should get some trust in return.”
She saw that she had no choice, not if she wanted him to go along with her plan. She stood up and led the way into the bathroom. “Remember, there’s much more I can get. If you slug me again and take this, you’ll lose the larger amount.”
“I understand.” He stood away from her, aware of her suspicions. His eyes widened a bit as she lifted off the top of the toilet tank. “Say, you’re a real pro, aren’t you?”
She unsealed the plastic wrapping and showed him the money. “Here it is, and here it stays.”
He thought about that. “If it stays, then I stay, too. I have to protect my investment.”
“You can’t stay in this apartment all weekend!”
“Why not? It’s one place the cops won’t be looking for me.”
She had to admit the accuracy of his statement. “But I—what if some friends of mine come by? What if—?”
“Tell ’em you’re sick, like you told the office. Tell ’em your jaw hurts.” He grinned a little as he said it.
“It does hurt!”
He sat down, making himself at home. “I’m sorry about that, but it had to be done.”
When she grasped that he really was going to stay, her mind was awash with possibilities. She imagined herself assaulted, or murdered in her bed. From there it was not too difficult to imagine herself running away with this wild, untamed man. “I don’t even know your name,” she said.
“It’s Dave. That’s as much as you need to know.”
“Mine’s Joyce. Joyce Ireland.”
“I saw it in the papers.”
She was nervous with him, as nervous as a girl on her first date. “Do you want—can I get you a drink?”
“Sure, why not? It’s going to be a long weekend, baby.”
They had a drink and then, because it was nearly time to eat, she took out two steaks she’d been saving for a special occasion. “You haven’t told me anything about yourself,” she said. “Where you come from, what you do.”
He shrugged. “I was in the Army for a while. When I got out a friend and I stole a car. I ended up with a year in jail, and I guess that fixed my life. I’ve been running and robbing ever since.”
“But—but you’re so well dressed!”
“It’s all an act. When you’re trying to get close enough to ladies to snatch their bank deposits, you don’t dress like a bum.”
They had another drink after dinner and she talked about herself—about her mother and her childhood and the lonely life she’d led till now. “I suppose that’s why I wanted the money,” she said. “Once I guessed you were going to steal it I wanted it for myself. I imagined all the glamorous places it could take me.”
“Where’s that?”
“Oh, Miami or Las Vegas or maybe even Paris.”
“You got big ideas.”
“You have to have in this world, I guess, because everybody else does. Until this week I thought I’d be spending my whole life at Worldwide, working for Mr. Melrose.”
She expected him to share her bed that night, but he curled up instead on the living-room sofa. She could hear his snoring through the bedroom door before she finally dropped off herself …
On Saturday she had to go shopping, and she asked if he would accompany her. He debated for a few moments and then shook his head. Too risky. She was a bit surprised that he trusted her to go out alone, but then she remembered the money was still in the toilet tank. She was the one who must trust him.
But he was there when she got back, watching a college football game on television. She went to the bathroom and checked the money, and that was there, too. She had trusted him and he had trusted her. Perhaps it was the start of something.
“You don’t talk much about yourself,” she said that evening while they were eating.
“You’d be bored with it.”
/> “No. No, I wouldn’t.” She looked away, and when he didn’t answer she said, “You know the first thing I noticed about you?”
“What?”
“Your big bushy eyebrows.” She laughed and he laughed too, and he leaned forward a little to kiss her. His lips tasted salty—and exciting.
On Sunday afternoon she teased him into driving to the zoo with her. But he watched the animals with studied detachment, and she knew he was thinking of his own time in prison. The afternoon was not a success. When they got back to the apartment he was anxious to talk about the plans for the following day.
“How much money can you get on a Monday?”
“Collections and payments won’t be too large, but we might easily have a couple of thousand left over from late Friday business. Mr. Melrose always insists on depositing before three o’clock, even on the days when the bank is open later. He keeps what’s left over in the office safe.”
“So how much?”
She sighed. “Maybe six thousand or so.”
“Will he know you took it?”
“Probably. Especially when I don’t show up for work on Tuesday. I’ll take the bank deposit down and just keep going. With the other money it’ll give us more than ten thousand, Dave.”
He averted his eyes. “You wouldn’t like running with me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m no good. I’m a crook.”
“I guess after last Thursday I’m a crook, too.”
They sat up late Sunday night, watching an old movie on television. In the morning she packed a small suitcase, taking her two favorite dresses and the few items that would be important to a new life. That was all.
He drove the car downtown and she sat by his side, increasingly nervous. “I’ll have to get us another car,” he said, “This one will be hot.”
“You mean steal one?”
The Night People Page 15