Her eyes got wide. “How'd you know she was dead?”
“Her brother told me.”
“The poor gal.” She shook her head at me. “And you're probably next.”
“Not me. He knows killing me'll get him in trouble with the Vineyard.”
“He's getting so he doesn't care,” Ginger said. She leaned over the tub. “Look. Why don't you beat it? He doesn't know where you live. He'd never find you. And you won't have to pay for a coffin then.”
“Did he send you here to tell me that?”
“Why, you fool!” Her green eyes got hard. She took a breath. “If you aren't the most conceited bastard! Pug isn't scared of anyone.”
“That's what you think.”
“I suppose he's scared of you.”
“He's not smart enough to be,” I said. “But ask him about the Princess sometime.”
That made her mad. I could see it in her eyes. “I'm sick and tired of hearing about the Princess.”
“What's the matter,” I said, “can't you compete with her?”
She got off the stool. “I'll slug you!” She pulled off the bracelet. “Here!” She threw the bracelet in the tub. “You know where you can stick that, you louse!”
“Thanks.”'
“And, brother, don't say I didn't warn you when Pug gets you.”
She started for the door. I fished around in the tub for the bracelet. “Don't go away mad,” I said.
“I'm not mad. I never get mad.”
I heard her close the door. I got another towel and dried off the bracelet. I threw the wet towel on the tile floor. Water oozed out of it. I felt better. Seeing Ginger had made me feel better. I got a drink and lay naked on the bed. I thought about Ginger, and then I thought about the Princess. It was three o'clock. I had four hours before I was due at the Vineyard. I already had that funny feeling in my stomach. I took a big drink of rye and cold water and then lay on the bed. The Princess was the best for one thing I'd ever had. She was as good as any whore in the world, and her heart and soul were in her work. She had a beautiful body, steel and silk and marble and rubber nil rolled in one. I felt the excitement grow. I took another drink, and then I got in the shower. I let the cold water run over me. I soaked a sheet in the water and got in bed without drying myself and pulled the wet sheet over me. It was cooler that way. I got up and locked the door. I went back to bed and in a little while I fell asleep. I was really sore when the clerk woke me by telephone at six-thirty, but another shower and a drink cleared my head. I wondered what the Princess would have for dinner.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I WOKE with a start, my heart up where my Adam's apple should have been. I found I was having trouble breathing. Moonlight blinded my eyes. I smelled a woman, but I didn't know who it was. I didn't even know where I was. For a minute I thought I was hack with the first woman I'd ever slept in bed with, the physical ed teacher at Lincoln High while I was a junior there. It was confusing to think that.
When my eyes got used to the light I saw a woman by the bed. She was staring down at me. I saw her body through her silk nightie, and I remembered everything. It was the Princess. She had been watching me while I was asleep. I sat up, feeling spooked, and stared back at her. Her skin looked milky in the moonlight. The pupils of her eyes were dark and uneven, like splotches of ink. Her face was strange.
She whispered: “How much guts have you, honey?”
Everything seemed unreal. I felt as though I was dreaming. The moonlight had changed the look of the room, made things stand out I'd never noticed before. An open closet door threw a tall shadow on the wall. The foot of the bed looked like a picket fence. There was a second moon in a mirror. I still had trouble breathing.
She whispered again: “Honey, how much?”
“God damn you,” I said. “Did you wake me up just to ask me that?”
She put her hand on my bare chest. Her skin was hot. “How would you like fifty grand?”
I was awake now. “Where is it?”
“In the temple.”
She sat on the edge of the bed, leaving her hand on my chest. There was a vault in the temple, she said; in the basement. In it were the gifts people had made to the Vineyard for years; jewellery, ornaments, gold and silver... and money.
“They don't keep any records,” she said. “Nobody knows how much is there. What we take won't be missed.”
“Why haven't you taken it long ago?”
“I needed help,” she said. “There was nobody I could trust.”
“What makes you think you can trust me?”
“I can as long as Pug Banta's alive.”
I thought that over. She was right. I would be finished if she turned me up to Pug. He wanted to get me bad enough, but so far she had stood in the way.
She said: “Are you coming?”
“This way? Naked?”
