something.
He walked away from the spot by the canal, down the road, and turned off where he thought we might have buried whatever it was, and dug up the bloody blanket.
They had checked with the bank at three minutes to ten. So they’d missed Shirley by maybe seconds.
There was nothing on the car as yet.
We were “love killers.” We had held “wild orgies” under the very eyes of the pitiful dying man. We were “sex-crazed thieves and lustful murderers.” We were “passion-bold.” I could see all the fact crime writers streaming toward the house that they called the “love nest death house,” and stuff like that.
Behind it all was Anthony Miraglia. He told the police something had made him suspicious. He berated himself for not acting sooner. He had discovered the original condenser I’d taken out of the intercom unit under Victor Spondell’s eyes, claiming it was bad. I remembered leaving it on the windowsill. I’d had to take it out with Victor watching.
He had taken the condenser home to his boy, who was interested in building radio kits. Then he looked at it, checked it, and found it flawless. From there on out, one thing had led to another, Doctor Miraglia told them. “Victor Spondell was a strong man, and I admired his courage in view of the fact that he knew he would die. He was my friend.”
They said we would never get away.
Something began to go out of me. I had to keep looking at that white bag with the money in it, to reassure myself. It helped.
“It looks bad, Jack.”
“Looks and is are two different things,” I said. “Keep your chin up, Shirley.”
We stopped off in Tampa, got some sandwiches and cokes, and took off.
By late afternoon we had rented a cabin on a river, in the woods. We were “newlyweds.” The nearest store and gas station stood at a country intersection about a mile away, called Wilke’s Corners.
The cabin was an old place, but pretty well kept up. There were three rooms. A small kitchen, a bedroom, and a living room. The furniture was beat.
The cabin was on a small hill. You could look out the front windows and see the dirt road winding down through pine trees, away from the river. On the other side, you could see the river, and you could hear it, pulsing darkly against the shore. There were cypresses and vines along the river, and the water was black.
We’d had to ask about a place. I asked in a bar attached to the grocery store at Wilke’s Corners. A farmer said he had a place, and we rented it sight unseen.
Shirley had waited in the car. But she was still talking about how the man’s face looked when I paid him the rent for the first two weeks.
“Well,” she said, standing in the living room. “We’re here.”
“Yeah. It’s not bad.”
She moved toward me. “It’s wonderful, Jack. We’re married. We’re newlyweds. I like it that way.”
“Sure. So do I.”
“Kiss me.”
I kissed her. I had wanted to bring in the stuff from the car. I didn’t get to it right then. I was worried about all they’d said over the radio. I was worried about the guy we’d had to rent the cabin from. I was worried and scared about everything, but nothing seemed to bother Shirley from the moment she entered that cabin door.
She said, “There’s nobody here, but us.”
“Yeah.”
“Nobody to see us, or watch us.”
“That’s right.”
“Just us. All alone. The way it should be.”
I held her tightly. It was good this way. You could hear the river and the wind in the pines and it was getting on toward the first part of twilight. Some of the worry fell away from me. The place was warm with our coming. We stood there in the middle of the living room, holding each other, amid the old smells of wood and old fires, and the air was close, but maybe that helped. It was different. There was a kind of freedom in it, and this freedom slowly worked on you, and all the bad fell away.
“We don’t have to hurry, or anything,” she said. “We can take our time, and do anything we want.” She said it in a close whisper, and there was strong excitement behind the words.
I rubbed my hands up and down her body, feeling the shape of her, and pulling her against me. I kissed her lips and her face, and we stood there holding it like that.
She pressed her hands against my chest, and tipped her head up to me, her lips parted, her eyes shining big and round. “Jack.” she said. “Do you really know how much I love you?”
I kissed her on the mouth and she moaned softly.
“Jack?” Her eyes had the devil in them now. “Let’s just take off all our clothes and be naked together. Not a stitch.”
“Hadn’t we better get the stuff in from the car?”
I kept thinking of that money out there in the car.
“It can wait.” She was already starting to unbutton her dress between her breasts, watching me. She paused. “Are you sorry about anything, Jack? I mean, about what we’ve done?”
“No.”
“Neither am I.”
We moved into the bedroom. I yanked the spread back and looked at the bed. It was made up and it looked clean. I saw no bugs or insects in the room. The guy I’d rented the cabin from said he kept it for fishermen mostly, but that it was always ready to be rented to anyone who wanted it.
“Jack?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a fireplace in the living room. Why not start a fire, and be real cozy?”
“It’s pretty warm for a fire.”
“It’ll be chilly tonight.”
I looked at her and grinned. “I’ll bet.”
She pouted. “Please. I’d like a fire. We could have a fire, and close all the windows and doors, and be cozy in the firelight.”
“Now?”
She breathed it. “Yes. Now. It’ll be better. I promise. We don’t have to hurry.”
I went on outside. I started looking for wood, but somehow I ended up over by the car. I took her bags inside, and then came back and got the shiny white leather suitcase. I got that chill on the back of my neck again. I took it inside. She was in the bedroom. I set the suitcase on a chair, and stood there staring at it.
She came out of the bedroom, carrying a big pile of blankets.
“You get the wood?”
“I will.
She frowned as she saw me staring at the money bag.
“Come on, Jack.”
I went out. I didn’t even ask her what the blankets were for. I got some wood together, mostly pine, so it would burn easily, and went back inside again. I was beginning to feel tired. We were remote from everything, and I couldn’t fasten on to what we had done. We were just here, that’s all.
Then I’d think of that money. The chill.
She had the blankets spread all around the floor in front of the fireplace. I dumped the wood in a box, and set the fire with some old newspapers underneath the wood. It caught quickly, and the room became a chimera of fire and shadow. It changed the cabin. She was right. It was good.
She still had her clothes on, with some of the buttons of her dress undone, the round thrust of her breasts showing.
“We forgot to get anything in to eat.”
“There are some cans in the kitchen,” she said. “Not much, but it’ll do. Don’t you think?”
“Sure.”
