The Vengeful Virgin

Miraglia had come directly from her place to my apartment. He had known she already had the money in her name when he was feeding me the guff about not being able to get the money. I knew—this was it.

“Shirley, we’ve got to make a move. I don’t know how much time we have.”

“What do you mean?”

“Miraglia’s wise, he’s wise to something. I don’t know what.” I explained why I’d said that. “He was here spilling a whole bunch of crap, lying his head off. He was feeling me out. And I goofed plenty. I’m positive of that.”

She was silent.

“There’s no doubt about it,” I said. “If we stick, we don’t have a chance. It’s only a matter of time. He’s looking for something, and when he finds it, he’ll light the fuse that will blow us straight to hell.”

“I can’t believe it,” she said. Her voice was flat. “What did we do wrong?”

“You mean what did we do right?”

She spoke loudly. “Stop scaring me, Jack!”

“He’s got a bug up,” I said. “Believe me.”

“Henry’s home,” she said. “He’s with Doctor Miraglia, right now. They went out together. I saw them.”

“Henry who?”

“Lamphier. Mayda’s husband. He flew in from Alaska. He’s all broken up. I talked with him.”

“That does it,” I said. “We’ve got to leave town. We can’t possibly take a chance and stay.” I remembered the money and what time it was. The banks were closed. They opened at nine-thirty the next morning. With my luck, tomorrow would be a bank holiday. I dropped the phone and dove for the newspaper, checking the date. Shirley kept calling to me, her voice crackling over the wire. Tomorrow would have to be all right, we would have to get through the night somehow. I came back to the phone. I felt hollow and scared. I knew if I let go I would just run. “We’ve got to make it through the night,” I said. “You’ll pick up the money in the morning and we’ll take off.”

“Jack, will you please slow down. You’re supposed to be the sane one.”

“I’m not sane. Not anymore. That was somebody else you knew.”

Her voice got tight and frightened. “How do you think it will look, me traipsing into the bank and asking to draw out all that money? Stop being foolish. You can’t be right about these things. Doctor Miraglia wouldn’t hurt a flea. He feels bad about Victor, that’s all. I’m sure...”

“Don’t kid yourself. I’m so right about this, I’m bleeding. Just thank your lucky stars we can get hold of that money. Because if it had been another way, we’d be running broke.” I stood there holding the phone, with this wild feeling inside me. She didn’t say anything. “What have you been doing,” I said. “Why didn’t you get in touch with me?”

“You said not to. But I would have, if I’d been able. The funeral was yesterday. I’ve had a million things to do. It hasn’t been easy.”

The funeral, I’d completely forgotten that there had to be a funeral. It hadn’t entered my mind. Victor Spondell had died and vanished and that was that. Shirley must have gone through plenty. She’d been the one who’d had to face everyone.

“Jack?”

“Yeah.”

“Running away will only make them all the more suspicious. Don’t you see?”

“All the more? Look,” I said. “Please believe this. If we stick around, they’ll nail us down, and we’ll never wriggle out.”

“But how? Why should they? How can they prove anything?”

“All they have to do is add things up. This goddamned Miraglia is the one who can add, and he’ll add for everybody. They don’t need proof. All they have to do is start looking around, asking questions, and putting pieces together. We might have made it if it hadn’t been for Mayda. There’s no use counting the ‘ifs’ now. An autopsy will show she wasn’t drunk. So, that’s count one. Why was she swerving all over the road? The gas station attendant will say he saw the car. They’ll find the truck driver I cut in front of. They’ll find she wasn’t alive when she hit the water. The wound in her back will be checked. They’ll know damned well it wasn’t made by a broken support from the convertible top of her car....”

“But you said all of that was perfect.”

“It was perfect. But not when somebody’s snooping, suspicious and anxious to turn up something.”

“Oh, Jack!’

“Yeah. Cripes. Then there’ll be the unknown person who saw my truck in front of your place that night. If they ask me about that, I’ll have to say I was there on a service call. Maybe somebody saw the truck over by the lake, how do I know?”

I thought of Grace. I wanted to tell her about Grace, but somehow I couldn’t bring it out. I should have told her long before this.

I said, “You beginning to catch on, now?”

She didn’t speak.

“We’re in it,” I said. “We’ve got to run. Running’s the only way out.”

“It makes us guilty.”

“We are guilty. Will you get that through your head?”

“We should never have done it.”

“But we did do it.”

Neither of us spoke for a moment. I knew she must feel the same as myself. Lost and sick and trapped.

I said, “I don’t have a cent, Shirley. We could run, now—but I’d rather take the chance for the money. We may never make it. It all depends on what they turn up tonight—how soon they act; whether or not Miraglia goes to the police with what he has. If we left now, we’d never have anything.”

“We’d have us, Jack.”

“What the hell are we without the money?”

She didn’t answer. She sure as hell knew the answer.

Finally, her voice came across the wire. It was soft, and there was something almost sad in it. “All right.”

“It just hasn’t worked out the way we wanted it to. We could stay and watch them close in, and try to beat them. But we’d never beat them. You know that.”

“Yes, Jack,” she said. “What do you want me to do?”

“It’s still got to look as good as we can make it.”

“Don’t you think it’s bad, talking all this while on the phone?”

“Sure, it’s bad. But we can’t see each other. You know that!”

“All right.”

“Here’s what I want you to do. Play it straight. You pack some things tonight. Anything, it doesn’t matter what—just to make it look good. Then write a short note to Miraglia. He’s the only possible person you’d really have any reason for telling anything. Right?”

“Yes.”

“Make it short. You can’t stand living where you are any longer. You want to get away. You’re going on a vacation, for a month. You’ll be back. Never mind where you’re going, anything like that. Mail that to him. Write it tonight, and mail it tomorrow—after we get the money.”

“Suppose he comes around?”

“Stall him. Don’t tell him you’re leaving, for God’s sake. Just be nice to him. That’s all.”

“What about Henry Lamphier?”

“Nothing about him. You don’t owe him anything.”

“Just a wife, that’s all.”

I ignored that. I was thinking fast, and everything seemed to be working out fine in my mind. “You get to the bank the first thing in the morning. Let’s say, quarter to ten. It opens at nine-thirty. Ask for two hundred thousand, cash.”

“But, Jack!”