Lemons Never Lie

A sudden siren erupted outside somewhere, interrupting him. Myers looked surprised, and then as the siren receded he grinned and said, 'Maybe somebody's working in this town tonight.' He grew serious again. 'In a shopping center, you're pulling a daylight robbery?'

'That's right,' Grofield said. He was sweating lightly, he could feel it. Improvisation had never been his strong suit, he'd always preferred to work from a prepared script. The caper he was making up wasn't emerging very well, it didn't have quite the smooth sound of truth.

'So the gimmick,' Myers said, 'must be in the getaway. What's the brilliant getaway, Grofield?'

Grofield licked his lips, trying to think about brilliant getaways from daylight robberies in shopping centers. 'We're starting a fire,' he said. 'In a… in a hosiery store just down from the bank.'

'You're pulling the job dressed as firemen? That's my gimmick!' Another siren sounded outside, farther away; Myers turned his head to listen to it, his expression growing thoughtful. Grofield watched Myers' face, sensing what was going on in the brain behind there, and knowing what it meant when Myers' eyes moved and he looked at the attachй case on the floor at the foot of the bed.

Grofield threw an ashtray at Brock and a pillow at Myers, jumped to his feet, grabbed the attachй case, and ran for the door. It took him too long one-handed to get the door open, and both of them were swarming all over him. He kicked and punched, lunging himself backward through the doorway, knowing it was more than the money involved now; Myers would kill him for trying the Little Rock con, there was no question about that.

Myers had both arms wrapped around the attachй case, and Harry Brock was trying to get both arms wrapped around Grofield. Finally there was no longer any choice; Grofield let go the handle of the attachй case. Myers jerked backward into Brock; Grofield tore his arm loose from Brock's fist; and while the two of them in the room sorted themselves out, Grofield ran like hell down the hotel corridor.

PART FOUR

1

Grofield walked into the theater at four in the afternoon, and stood for a second just inside the door, looking down past the rows of seats at the stage. A white sheet was draped over the sofa. Grofield had called here last night, after getting away from Myers and Brock; the conversation had been short, neither of them wanting to say much over the phone, but Grofield had understood from things she said and didn't say that Dan Leach was dead. She had lived here for thirty-four hours now with that thing under the sheet.

Grofield hurried down the aisle and went up the steps to the stage. Mary was on none of the sets, nor in either of the wings. Grofield didn't want to call her name; he didn't know why, exactly, but he just didn't want to shout in here right now. He thought it would be bad for Mary. He found her in the female dressing room, a long narrow room under the stage with one stone wall. She was sitting at the make-up table, doing nothing, and when he walked into the room their eyes met in the mirror and he saw no expression in her face at all. He'd never seen her face so completely empty before, and he thought, That's what she'll look like in her coffin. And he ran across the room to pull her to her feet and clamp his arms tightly around her, as though she were in danger of freezing to death and he had to keep her warm.

At first she was unmoving and unalive, and then she began violently to tremble, and finally she began to cry, and then she was all right.

They were together fifteen minutes before they started to talk. Grofield had made soothing noises and said words to reassure her before that, but there had been no real talk. Now she said, 'I don't want to tell you about it. Is it all right?'

'It's all right.' She was sitting again, and he was on one knee in front of her, rubbing his hands up and down her arms, still as though trying to keep her warm and alive.

'I don't want to talk about it ever.'

'You don't have to. I know what happened; I don't need the details.'

She looked at him, and her expression was odd-intense, and somehow sardonic. She said, 'You know what happened?'

He didn't understand. They'd come here, Myers and Brock. They'd killed Dan Leach. They'd forced Mary to tell them where Grofield was and what name he was using. What else?

She saw his face change when he realized what else, and she closed her eyes. Her whole face closed, it seemed; it went back to the expression he'd seen when he'd first walked in here.

He pulled her close again. 'All right,' he said. 'All right.'

2

Grofield dropped the body in the hole and picked up the shovel again and started pushing the dirt back in. It was a cool night and cloudy, very dark. Despite the chill, Grofield was sweating as he worked. His eyes glared at everything as he moved, his jaw was clenched, his mind was turning and turning and finding no rest.

He finished filling in the grave, returned the pieces of weedy sod to the top, and walked back and forth to tamp the fresh dirt down. Then he walked over to his car, a five-year-old Chevy Nova he'd bought secondhand two years ago, put the shovel and flashlight and ground cloth in the trunk, and drove on back to the theater.

Mary was moving around in bathrobe and slippers, making a midnight snack. They'd made love earlier, downstairs in the dressing room, more awkward with one another than they'd ever been before. The sex had been cumbersome and difficult and not very satisfying in the usual sense, but afterward Mary had been more relaxed, more her normal self. And now that Dan was gone she was even better.

The sofa looked strange. He'd taken the slipcovers off and burned them, but the upholstery itself was stained with blood – Myers had been using his knife again – so Grofield had covered the thing with an old blue bedspread from the storage room downstairs. Under normal circumstances, they would have had their midnight snack sitting on that sofa, but tonight Mary without comment put the things on the table in the dining room set, and Grofield said nothing about it.

She'd made sandwiches and coffee, and she'd put out cookies. They sat at right angles at the table,