A Touch of Death (23 page)

“Wait till you see me dressed up,” she said.

“Hurry it up. For God’s sake, hurry.”

She disappeared into the bedroom. I waited, feeling my insides tie up in knots. Being so near the end of it made it terrible.

Ten minutes later she came out, walked past me into the center of the room without saying a word, and turned slowly, like a model.

She was Susie, all right. And Susie was a confection, with frosting.

The big floppy picture hat was perched on the side of her head as if it had been nailed to the shining curls. She had on just a shade too much lipstick across a mouth just a shade too wide. The flowery summer dress was short-sleeved and it snuggled lovingly against Susie’s natural resources and scenic high points as if it couldn’t bear to be torn away. The white shoes were only straps and three-inch heels, and the nylons were ultrasheer with elaborate clocks. She was wearing long white gloves, which showed up the tan of her arms.

Susie was right off the barracks wall.

“Well,” she asked coyly, “how do you like your creation?”

“Brother!” I said. Then time came running back and fell in on me again. “Look, I can drool later. Let’s get going.”

“All right,” she said. Then she glanced quickly at my face. “Lee! You haven’t shaved.”

I’d forgotten that. I’d meant to after that shower, but it had slipped my mind. That was what pressure could do. “Well, the hell with it. We haven’t got time.”

Then I put a hand up to my face, remembering. I not only hadn’t shaved. I hadn’t shaved for three days.

I cursed. But there was no use just asking people to stare at me. I ran into the bathroom, yanking off the shirt and tie. While I lathered and scraped I heard her rustling around in the bedroom.

I came out. She was waiting.

“I’ll need something to put the money in,” she said. “There’s a lot of it. Physically, I mean.”

“We’ll stop somewhere and buy a briefcase,” I said impatiently. “No, wait. How about that overnight bag of yours?”

“Certainly. I hadn’t thought of that. It’ll do nicely, and I’m not taking the old clothes anyway.” She went into the bedroom and came out carrying the bag.

I put on the coat, which had been hanging on the back

of a chair.

We were ready.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

When we stepped out onto the street I could feel the skin along my back draw up hard and tight with chill. But by the time we had casually walked the block to the car and got in, it wasn’t so bad. I took the sunglasses out of the glove compartment and put them on.

I drove slowly. Traffic was heavy. It was a hot, still day, and I could feel myself sweating beneath the coat.

I watched the traffic lights. I watched the other cars. If we had an accident now...

But we didn’t. Nothing happened. Once a squad car pulled up alongside us in the other lane and I could feel my nerves knot up, but the two cops paid no attention to us. They went on past and turned the corner.

We were downtown now, in the thick of traffic. I couldn’t turn left into Avalon, where the Seaboard Bank and Trust and the Third National were, so I had to go around the block.

The first time through there wasn’t a parking place anywhere in the two blocks between the banks. Next time our luck was better. I found one just a half block beyond the Seaboard. There was a half hour on the meter.

I took out the first two keys and handed them to her. “I’ll wait right here while you make both of them. After you come out of the Seaboard, walk on down to the Third National. When you’re finished there, walk back this way and stand diagonally across on the corner up there. I’ll see you. I can turn left there, so I’ll pick you up and we’ll be headed for the Merchants Trust.”

She smiled, crinkling up her eyes. “Watch Susie’s walk,” she said. She was as cool as a mint bed.

She got out, carrying the little suitcase.

I watched her. I saw her cross the street behind me. She went up the steps into the bank.

I waited.

My nerves crawled. It was almost physically impossible to sit still. I lit cigarettes. I threw them out after two puffs. I pretended to be looking for something in the glove compartment, to keep my face down. Another patrol car went slowly past in the traffic. It was a black shark, cruising, deadly, not quite noticing, easing past, gone. I unclenched my hands.

It was hot. I became aware that I was counting. I didn’t know what I was counting; I was just saying numbers. I tried to follow her in my mind. Where was she now? She had to go through the bank to the rear, down the steps, through the massive doorway. She signed the card, she gave her key to an attendant in the shiny corridors between walls of steel honeycomb. Now she was going into one of the booths, closing the door, sliding the lid off the box, transferring the money to the overnight bag, coming out....

Up the steps, through the bank, out the doorway, down the steps outside....

I stared into the rear-view mirror.

There she was.

She came out. She flowed down the steps with the sexy indolence of Susie and sauntered across the street behind me. She came up the sidewalk, and as she passed the car she turned her face and smiled. One eye closed ever so slightly in a wink.

One away.

I waited again. I was watching the parking meter now. It was getting close. I wished I had asked her to put a nickel in it. If the flag dropped I had to get out and do it. I didn’t want to get out. I felt in my pocket.

I didn’t have a nickel.
I watched the meter. Sweat ran slowly down my face.
It had three minutes left on it when I saw her cross the

street ahead of me and stand on the corner, waiting.

I picked her up. My shirt was wet. My hands trembled. I couldn’t wait for her to get the door closed. “Did you get it?” I demanded. “Was it all right? Did you have any trouble?”

She laughed softly. “Not a bit. Take it slowly, so you’ll miss that next light. I want to show you something.”

The light caught us. I stopped. “Open it,” I whispered. I felt as if I were being strangled. “Open it!”

She had the overnight bag in her lap. She unsnapped the two latches, smiling at me out of the corners of her eyes. “Look.”

She raised the lid just a couple of inches. I looked in. I forgot everything else. It was worth it. It was worth everything I had gone through. It was beautiful. I saw twenties, fifties, hundreds, in bundles. In fat bundles

girdled with paper bands.

I wanted to plunge my hands into it.

“Watch,” she whispered. She slid a white-gloved hand in under the lid and broke one of the bands and stirred the loosened bundle with a caressing slowness that was almost sexual. I watched, gripping the wheel until my fingers hurt.

She snapped the lid shut. I took the other key out of my wallet and gave it to her. We were still waiting for the light. When she had put the key in her purse I reached over and took her hand. I squeezed it. She squeezed back.

“Look,” I whispered, “after we’ve finished this last one, let’s go back to the apartment. Just for a few minutes, before we start. Susie wouldn’t mind, would she?”

She gave me a sidelong glance and said, “I don’t think she would. Not for just a few minutes.”

She had slid the bag back a little in her lap and she was straightening the seams of her stockings, doing it deliberately and very slowly, one long lovely leg at a time. She turned her face just slightly so her eyes were smiling obliquely up at me from under the curving lashes.

“After all,” she said softly, “it was Venus, wasn’t it, who breathed life into Galatea?”

It was wonderful. Oh, Lord, it was wonderful.

I could hardly hear her now. The whisper was tremulous, catching in her throat. “This is shameless, isn’t it? In brilliant sunlight, in the middle of town. I— I think Susie is going to be a revelation to both of us. Oh, won’t that light ever change?”

If she didn’t shut up and stop it I’d go crazy right there in the street. I had to look away from her.

It was terrific. If you lived twenty consecutive life times you’d never run across anything quite like it. I almost missed the light, just thinking of the beauty of it.

She had outguessed them all, and she thought she had outguessed me. And now we were going back to the apartment, we were going to launch the tremulous and smoldering Susie, and I was going to walk out when it was done with $120,000 I’d never have to divide with anybody. And not only that. The thing that made it an absolute masterpiece was the fact that now I wouldn’t even have any battle to get those clothes so I could throw them down the garbage chute. She’d help me. She’d help me all the way.

You would never beat it. You would never approach it again.

Horns were blasting behind us. I snapped out of it.

The street the Merchants Trust was on was one of the main drags, and I couldn’t turn left into it either. I had to go around the block again.

We were shot with luck. A man pulled out of a parking place less than fifty feet beyond the ornate, marble-columned entrance. I slid into it. She patted my hand and got out.

I turned my head and watched her. I watched the slow, seductive tempo of Susie’s walk. She went along the sidewalk in the sun looking like something the censors had cut out of a sailor’s dream. She went into the bank.

It was only a few minutes more.

I tried to light a cigarette. My hands shook. A cop came by on a motor tricycle, looking at meters. My whole back turned to ice. He went on, not even looking at me. I breathed again.

I set the rear-view mirror so I could watch the entrance without craning my neck. I put my hands down on the seat and clenched them tightly to stop the trembling. It was being so near that made it awful. I thought of the money. I thought of the apartment bedroom, the Venetian blinds drawn, and Susie. I tried to quit thinking of both, before I exploded.

It had to be less than five minutes now. She’d been gone—how long? I didn’t know. Time had lost all meaning. The whole world was holding its breath.

Then I saw her.

She came out of the bank. She walked down the steps and diagonally across the sidewalk toward the car. I could feel the sigh coming right up from the bottom of my lungs.

It was made now. There was only that short drive back to the apartment. I started the motor and reached out a hand to open the door for her. She saw me watching her,

and smiled.

But she didn’t stop.

She went right on by. The white-gloved left hand, which was carrying the purse down beside her thigh, made a little gesture as she went by the window. Three of the fingers waved.

Good-by!

I lunged for the door handle. Then I stopped, the absolute horror of it beginning to break over me. I was sick. I couldn’t move. I was empty inside, and cold, and somewhere far back in the recesses of my mind I thought I could hear myself screaming. But there was no sound except the traffic and the shuffle of feet along the

sidewalk.

She went slowly on down the street, her hips swaying.

I didn’t know what I was doing now. I yanked the wheel and lurched out of the parking place. A car behind almost hit me. The driver slammed on his brakes and leaned out to curse me. I was out in traffic. Everything was unreal, like a bad dream. I was abreast of her. I hit the horn. She strolled casually on. Somebody else turned and looked. I cringed. I wanted to hide.

I crawled ahead. Cars behind me were honking. I came to the corner. The light was red. I stopped. She stopped on the sidewalk in the crowd waiting for the light. I beeped the horn, hesitantly, timidly. It roared.

She turned her face slowly and glanced in my direction, cool and imperturbable and utterly serene. I formed the words with my mouth: Please, please, please... Her gaze swept on.

The light changed. She stepped off the curb. I started across the intersection. Then she stepped back on the sidewalk, and turned right, down the cross street. I had gone too far into the intersection to turn. I turned anyway.

I was being engulfed in madness. Everything was distorted, and dark, and wild, and I had the sensation of being caught and buffeted by some howling wind. My left fender raked the fender of a car stopped at the crosswalk for the light. A whistle shrilled. I swung on around. I crashed against the side of the car that had made the right turn inside me.

Whistles were blowing everywhere. I saw a cop running toward me from the opposite corner. I slammed ahead, tearing a fender from the car on my right. Both lanes were blocked by cars stopped for the light at the next corner. I saw her walking coolly along the sidewalk.

I slammed on the brakes and lunged for the door. I was out in the street. Two cops in uniform were coming down on me. Men jumped from both the cars I had hit. The whistles were blowing again. I lunged toward the curb. Running men were crashing into me, trying to hold me. But now it all faded away, and I could see nothing except her. There was nothing else in the world except a foaming, dark madness, and Madelon Butler walking serenely along the street, going away. She had the money. And if she got away they’d hang me. I was shouting. I was trying to point. I was raging.

“Madelon Butler! That’s Madelon Butler!”

Nobody listened. Nobody paid any attention.

Couldn’t they see her?

Hands were grabbing me. Arms tightened about my neck and around my legs. I felt the weight of bodies. Everybody was yelling. A siren wailed shortly and ground to a stop somewhere behind me. Half-seen faces bobbed in front of me and I swung my fists and they disappeared, to be replaced by even more. I plowed on. I went on toward the curb, taking them with me. She was nearly abreast. I could see the coppery curls glinting in the sunlight and the slow, seductive roll of her hips and thighs the way she had practiced it, and the small overnight bag with $ 120,000 in it swinging gently in her other hand.

Something landed on my head and knocked me to my knees. I got off the pavement and went between two parked cars and up onto the curb, peeling them off behind me like a bunch of grapes pulled through the slats of a Venetian blind.

“Stop her! Stop her! Stop Madelon Butler stop madelon butler madelonbutler—”