Women's Wiles

by Joyce Harrington

Bert scowled.

  “Get her a pencil and some paper,” Harry said quietly.

  Bert went into the kitchen and rummaged around, returning with a stump of a pencil and a scrap of paper. He gave them to her.

  She wrote industriously for several minutes, compiling a rather lengthy list. She handed it to Bert. “I made it very neat so that even you would have no trouble reading it. Please go right away, as I’m already a day off schedule.”

  Bert studied the list for a moment and began to read it out loud. “Skim milk, dried prunes, brewer’s yeast, raisins...raisins? Whadda’ya gonna do with raisins? Bake cookies?”

  “I’m going to eat them,” she snapped.

  He glanced back at the list. “Unprocessed coarse bran? You’re gonna eat that too? I thought that’s what they fed to hogs. Perrier water?”

  “You can get all of those things at the health food store on White Plains Road.”

  “And what about all these other things you got written here? Charles of the Ritz?”

  “I do not intend to explain and defend my need for everything on that list. I simply will not be without them. You can get them all at Lord and Taylor in White Plains, or go to Bloomingdale’s or Saks.”

  He looked at Harry. “I’m gonna feel like an idiot goin’ in those places to buy all this stuff.”

  “Don’t complain,” she muttered. “Idiot would be a step up for you.”

  Harry held up a hand to tell Bert to restrain himself. “Just go get the stuff on the list. Maybe it’ll keep her quiet. And take it easy.”

  After Bert had left, she turned to Harry. “Do you know how to play gin rummy?”

  “Of course I know how to play gin rummy.”

  “We’re apparently going to have lots of time to kill. Would you like to play some?”

  He shrugged and smiled beneath the mask. “Why the hell not?”

  “Why don’t we play for money?”

  “You don’t have any. We took yours. Remember?”

  “You’ll be giving me a chance to win it back. If I lose, I’ll have Harvey take care of it.”

  He shook his head. “What the hell. Let’s see if I can find a deck o’ cards.”

  Harry met Bert in the kitchen when he returned from his shopping trip. “She won all her money back,” Harry said.

  “She what?”

  “We played gin rummy while you were gone and she won all her money back.”

  “You gonna let her keep it?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m tryin’ to decide what’s the right thing to do.”

  “Harvey Chiefman?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m calling back to see if we can’t do a little negotiating and come up with somethin’ acceptable to both parties.”

  “I’ve already told you I won’t pay you one red cent.”

  “Have you called the police yet?”

  “No. I’m hoping it’s not going to be necessary. I’m a reasonable man. Look. You’re in a lot of trouble. But if you just let Retta go, then we’ll consider the case closed, no questions asked. Period. How does that sound?”

  “Harvey, either you call the police or I’m gonna call ’em.”

  “You? Why would you call them?”

  “I want ’em to know your wife’s been kidnapped.”

  “I’ll deny it.”

  “I’ll warn ’em you’ll probably deny it. Where are you gonna tell ’em she is, that they can check it out? What if they start thinkin’ that maybe you’re an accessory? And even if you convince the cops you’re not in on it, how’s it gonna look when the story gets into the papers and television that a man in your position and with your kind of dough isn’t willing to put out a few bucks to determine whether your wife lives or dies? And I’ll see to it that they know. And another thing, Harvey, how’s this story gonna look when your case comes up in divorce court?”

  Chiefman was quiet for a prolonged moment. Then, “I can see you’ve been doing a little thinking since the last time we talked.”

  “We’re businessmen, just like you, Chiefman.”

  “Let me discuss it with my lawyer. Call me back tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow morning, Harvey. And Harvey, we don’t want to drag this thing on indefinitely. Understand?”

  “Is she beginning to get to you a little?” There was a trace of knowing chuckle in his voice.

  “Chiefman, I never said I didn’t appreciate your position. But think of the newspapers and the divorce case and everything. Talk to your lawyer and come up with something reasonable. Okay?”

  Bert was standing at the door when Harry returned from making the call. “She wants me to go shopping again,” Bert said.

  “What for this time?”

  “She said she absolutely refuses to go another day without fresh underwear. And another thing. She says the chains have to come off.”

  “For what?”

  “For one thing, to put on the underwear. And another thing, she wants to take a shower and she refuses to take a shower if she can’t close the bathroom door all the way. And besides, she’d never be able to step over the edge of the tub with the chains on her legs.”

  “So take the chains off for a while. She ain’t going nowhere.”

  “There’s more.”

  “What else?”

  “She’s got to have clean towels.”

  “Anything else?”

  “She says the tub’s filthy. Says she wants us to scour it before she takes her shower.”

  “Give her the soap powder and let her do it herself.”

  “I already tried that. She said she’s allergic to soap powders. She can’t do it without rubber gloves.”

  “Then we’ll get her rubber gloves. Go to the nearest store, get her a towel, a clean pair of pants and a pair of rubber gloves.”

  “Incidentally, did you do any good with Chiefman?”

  “He says he wants to talk to his lawyer. I think I got him thinkin’.”

  “Hello?”

  “Chiefman?”

  “Yes.”

  “You talk to your lawyer?”

  “Yes, I did. He agrees with me. Right down the line. You let Retta go and I won’t call the police and we’ll consider the case closed. You have my word on it. It’ll have been a nice adventure for her to tell her children about some day...if she ever has any...which I frankly doubt. I know one thing. If she ever does, they won’t be mine...”

  “Chiefman,” Harry said, trying to make his voice heavy with menace, “Let me tell you something. This is a negotiation. Hear what I said? A negotiation. We don’t intend to just let you call the shots. Now you come up with something interesting or we put her away. And we go to the papers and TV and make it known you refused to talk to us.”

  “Listen, guy, I respect your threat as a good tactic. As you said yesterday, we’re both businessmen. But face it. You’ve committed a federal offense. That’s heavy stuff. And stupid. Don’t you know the Feds’ll find you? And I’m giving you a chance to walk from this with a whole skin. Besides, who will the media believe, me or you? Think it over, pal. Learn to recognize a sweet deal when you hear one. As a matter of fact, I should really make you pay me a little something.”

  Harry hesitated a moment. “We’ll be in touch.” He got back in the truck and returned to the apartment.

  Bert met him as he entered the kitchen. “Well?”

  “He says he’s sticking to yesterday’s offer.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “But don’t worry about it,” Harry said resolutely. “He ain’t gettin’ away with it. I don’t give up that easy.”

  Retta Chiefman called to them from the bathroom door. “Will one of you please do something? We just ran out of hot water.”

  Harry dropped in a dime and dialed. The light bulb was out in the phone booth and he needed a match to see the numbers on the dial.

  “Hello?”

  “Chiefman?”

  “Yes.”

  “Chiefman, we’ve decide
d to go along with your deal.”

  “I think you’re being smart. I really do. You’re saving yourself a lot of grief. How do you want to handle it? Are you going to drop her off near the house, here, or what?”

  “Jesus, come on, Chiefman. What do you take us for? Here’s our side of the deal. Without callin’ the cops, you have to go get her yourself where we left her. I promise you she’s okay. We got a deal?”

  Chiefman hesitated.

  “Come on, Harvey. You’re gettin’ it your way. You’re winnin’ out. What more do you want?”

  After a slight pause, “All right. Where is she?”

  “There’s this park in Darien, Connecticut that’s completely deserted this time o’ year and to get to it—”

  “Darien? You want me to go all the way to Darien? At this time of night?”

  “It ain’t that far, Chiefman. Go by the Merritt Parkway. Take Exit Thirty-six, North, go about two miles, you’ll see a big stone archway on the right. You can’t miss it. Follow the main road in and you’ll see a big deserted house. Behind the house, there’s a shed. She’s in the shed. We left a little electric lantern burning in there, but it won’t burn too long so you oughta get moving. And take a knife or something. We left her tied up and gagged.”

  “I like the idea of my being the one to rescue her, but couldn’t you put her a little closer to home? Besides, that’s over a state line, you know.”

  “Chiefman, you were the one that set the deal. Right? How long’s it gonna take you in that fancy sports car of yours?”

  After another pause, “Okay.”

  Harry hung up the phone and stepped out of the booth, which was located at the intersection of Chiefman’s street and the main road leading to it. He climbed into the truck where Bert was waiting. They sat in silence until they saw Chiefman speed by in his Maserati. Then they drove to Chiefman’s house.

  They pulled into the long driveway and backed the truck to the door. Using the keys from Retta Chiefman’s purse, they went into the house, looked quickly around, and began loading the truck: five color television sets and a Betamax, some custom stereo equipment, a few antique pieces and some modern paintings, eight fur coats, lots of sterling, including matched service for thirty-six, all of Retta Chiefman’s jewelry, some of her fancier-looking clothes and perfumes, Harvey’s clothes, a dozen cases of liquor and another dozen of dusty-looking French wines. And of course they took the Seville, with the two shopping bags still in it. And they had the money out of Retta’s handbag, or what was left after shopping for her...

  What the hell! Everything considered, the caper didn’t turn out all that bad.

  Medicine Woman

  Richard Deming

  Jed Harmon, wearing his fishing clothes and carrying a tackle box, paused in the kitchen doorway to sniff the aroma of the spaghetti sauce simmering on the stove.

  “You don’t have much confidence in my fishing prowess, do you?” he said reproachfully.

  Marcia Harmon, trim and neat in a starched gingham dress and apron, paused in her stirring of the sauce to smile at him. “You didn’t have very much luck this morning.”

  From behind Jed, Sergeant Harry Cartwright said, “Late afternoon is when they hit best around here.”

  “You bring in a string of pike or bass and I’ll stick the sauce and meatballs in the freezer,” Marcia assured both men. “But in case you have your usual luck, we won’t have to go hungry.”

  “Our usual luck?” her husband said. “What about those two nice bass we had for dinner last night?”

  “What about the nice baloney we had the night before?” she countered.

  “Just be prepared to freeze that stuff,” Jed told her. Moving over to the stove, he bent to kiss her cheek. “Be back about six, hon.”

  Sergeant Cartwright said, “I’ll take a look around outside before you walk out, Harmon. You wait here.”

  Jed Harmon’s plain, pleasant face formed into a frown. “Flager couldn’t know where I am, Sergeant. Why don’t you relax?”

  “I’ll relax after you give your testimony tomorrow,” the police officer said dryly. “Meanwhile my job is to make sure you stay alive to give it.” His tone became definite. “Wait here.”

  With a resigned air, Jed Harmon set his tackle box on the kitchen table. Sergeant Cartwright walked through the kitchen to the back door and went outside.

  Placing a lid on the pot of simmering spaghetti sauce, Marcia went over to lean her head against her husband’s broad chest. Her dark hair barely brushed his chin, for she was a foot shorter than his muscular six feet two.

  “I’ll be glad when this is over,” she said. “It’s a little nerve wracking having to wonder each morning if I’ll be a widow by night.”

  “How could Flager’s men possibly find me way out here?” he asked, stroking her hair. “I’ll be kind of sorry when it’s over. I’m enjoying the fishing.”

  She pulled back slightly in order to look up into his face. “It’s not fair that a law-abiding citizen has to hide out from gangsters just because he did his civic duty. Mark Flager should be the hunted one. He’s the one who tossed the bomb.”

  “He’s not exactly running around free,” Harmon said. “He’s sitting in jail. And after I identify him from the stand tomorrow, he should be on his way to the death house.”

  “His army of gunmen are still free, though. I wish you hadn’t seen it, Jed. Why did you have to be passing at that particular moment?”

  “I’m glad I saw it. Do you think a man capable of tossing a bomb into a crowded restaurant should get away with it? He killed four people and injured ten. If he beats this rap, his crooked union will have a stranglehold on the whole restaurant industry. No one will dare oppose him.”

  Harry Cartwright came back in by the rear door. “No sign of anyone around,” he announced.

  Marcia drew away from her husband’s arms. “I hope you have luck,” she said. “But just in case, the spaghetti will be ready when you get back.”

  From the kitchen window, she watched the two men walk down to the lake a bare hundred feet behind the house. They made an odd pair. Jed Harmon was tall and wide-shouldered, Harry Cartwright slim and wiry and no more than five feet eight. It seemed a little incongruous that the smaller man was the assigned protector of the larger. Of course, size and muscle meant nothing against bullets, and the district attorney had assured Jed and Marcia that Sergeant Harry Cartwright was the most adept man on the force with the pistol holstered on his right hip.

  The outboard skiff was a speck on the horizon when Marcia heard a car drive in the front way. Walking into the front room, she peered out the window to see a car parked before the front door where the gravel drive circled in front of the house. A tall, lean, dark-skinned man of about forty got out of the right side of the car. The driver, a plump blond man about ten years younger, got out the other side. Both were dressed neatly but inexpensively in lightweight summer suits and Panama hats.

  As the men mounted the porch steps, Marcia slipped on the burglar chain and opened the door a bare crack. “Yes?” she said through the crack.

  Both men removed their hats. The dark, lean man produced his wallet and opened it to show a badge.

  “Sergeant John Minor of the district attorney’s staff, ma’am,” he said politely. “My partner here is Officer George Tobin. Are you Mrs. Harmon?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Just a moment, please.”

  Shutting the door so that she could slide the chain from its slot, she pulled the door open again and stood aside to let the men enter. “Has something happened, Sergeant?”

  “Oh, no,” the lean man said. “The D.A. just doesn’t like to take chances. He wants us to tail your husband and his guard into town in the morning.”

  Both men moved into the front room and the lean man glanced around. “Do you have enough room to put us up overnight?”

  “If you don’t mind doubling up,” Marcia said. “There are only two bedrooms, and my husband and I use one.
Sergeant Cartwright’s has a double bed, though, and one of you can use the front-room day bed.”

  “That’ll be fine,” the lean man said. “I know Cartwright pretty well, so I’ll bunk with him. George, you can have the day bed.”

  His plump partner gave his head a jerky nod. He seemed to be uncomfortably warm; his face was beaded with sweat.

  Marcia said, “Let me take your hats. Your coats too, if you’d like.”

  The lean man said, “I’m quite comfortable,” and then surrendered only his hat.

  The plump George Tobin decided to retain his coat too, though Marcia couldn’t imagine why, because he obviously wasn’t comfortable. She didn’t urge him, deciding he was old enough to know his own mind. When she returned from placing the hats in the center hall closet, both had taken easy chairs. The plump man was wiping his face with a handkerchief.

  “I think George is coming down with a cold,” Minor said. “He’s been having chills and fevers.”

  “Would you like some aspirin?” Marcia asked.

  “No thanks,” George Tobin said. “I’ll be all right.”

  The lean man said, “We spotted a boat pulling out as we drove over the hump. Your husband and Cartwright fishing?”

  “Yes. They’ll be back at six. Excuse me a moment. I’m cooking spaghetti sauce and it’s time to give it a stir.”

  When she returned from the kitchen, the plump man was still seated where she had left him, but the man who had introduced himself as Sergeant John Minor was nowhere in sight. Before Marcia could ask where he was, he appeared from the central hallway.

  “Just washing my hands,” he said with a smile. “You sure have a modern bath for so far from civilization.”

  “There’s a deep well and an electric pump,” she said. “We have all modern conveniences.”

  Minor reseated himself and Marcia sank into the center of the sofa. Glancing at her wristwatch, she saw it was only three-thirty and wondered how she could entertain her unexpected guests for two and a half hours.

  “Would you like something to drink?” she asked. “I’m afraid all we have is beer.”