“No, you don’t!” Grace said, and grabbed for Shirley.
People were stopping on the sidewalk.
Shirley turned and looked at Grace. Grace said something I didn’t get, but from the expression on a woman pedestrian’s face, I could tell it was something real filthy.
Shirley hit her smack in the face with the white bag.
It was all I needed. Two dames fighting. At a time like this. I slid across the seat. “Get in, Shirley!”
Grace came at her, claws out. Shirley turned and jumped into the car. I started the engine and took off. Grace was standing back there on the street, yelling bloody murder. She started running after the car, then stopped, right in the middle of the street. Horns blared.
I kept watching in the rear-view mirror. Grace turned and ran to the sidewalk, and off in the opposite direction.
We drove along. “Who was that?”
“Nobody. Forget it. A nutty girl I knew once.”
I looked at her. She was sitting very straight and prim, with her skirt pulled down over her knees, knees together, looking out of the windshield. The white leather bag was between us on the seat, I let my hand touch it and the back of my neck got cold.
“Everything go all right?” I said.
I didn’t want to scare her yet. She didn’t say anything.
I turned and said, “She’s a damned fool woman who refuses to leave me alone.” My voice rose. “She just happened along on the street. I couldn’t get rid of her.” I began to shout. “Good Christ, Shirley. I didn’t want her around, I knew her once a long time ago. Long before I met you. She won’t let me be!”
My ears rang. She didn’t say a word.
“Shirley,” I said, keeping it down. “I’m sorry she was there. I couldn’t help it. I did everything I could to get rid of her.”
“That is not what I meant,” Shirley said.
We drove along. She didn’t speak.
“Shirley, for Christ’s sake. Shirley?”
She said nothing.
I wanted to stop the car and tear open the shiny white leather bag and look at what was inside.
“Shirley?”
Nothing.
“Did it go all right, Shirley?”
She just sat there.
I slowed down and tried to drive very carefully. “Shirley?” I said. “It’s like this.” So I told her all about Grace; everything about her. It was something I should have done at the beginning, and let that be a lesson to me. I laid it on the line and dropped it in her lap. “She’s screwy. There was nothing I could do. What would you have me do?”
She had nothing to say. I stopped the car and turned to look at her.
“Shirley.” My voice was tight. “Did you or did you not get the money?”
“What if I didn’t?”
“Did you get it!”
She didn’t look at me. I grabbed the bag and started opening it. The clamps were stuck. I tore at them.
“There’s a key,” she said.
“Where is it?”
“I have it.”
“Well, give it to me!”
“Here.” She fished around in a small blue purse, and handed me a flat metal key. My hands were soaking wet and shaking. I couldn’t get it in the lock, then I did, and the bag popped open and money tumbled all over the seat between us. It was stacked neatly and it was all in paper-banded packets.
“Jesus H. Christ.”
She didn’t say anything.
“You made it,” I said, staring at the money.
“Yes. That’s obvious, isn’t it.”
“How much?”
“All of it. Three hundred and forty...”
“I told you not to take all of it!”
“I wanted it all.”
I stared at her. Well, what the hell did it matter now? She looked at me that way and said, “Was she nice in bed, Jack?”
“Who?”
“That girl? Was she hot? A good lay? Did she really love it up?”
“Cut it out.”
“I’m merely asking. I’m serious. She looked as if she could really bounce a bed.”
“Shirley, cut it out!”
“Don’t shout, darling. People will hear you. It’s embarrassing. It may not be to you, but it is to me.”
She turned and looked at the windshield.
I packed the money lovingly back into the shiny white leather bag, and snapped the lid shut.
All three hundred thousand dollars of it.
The key was in my hand. Make a gesture, I thought. Go ahead. I looked at the key. It was a hard thing to do.
“Here,” I said. “You keep this.”
She took the key daintily, without a word, and put it in her purse, and faced front. I reached out and touched her arm. It was like touching a stovepipe.
“Shirley,” I said. “Honey. Please. Don’t—”
She watched the windshield.
I started the car and drove away, then remembered.
“Where are your bags?”
“At the Greyhound bus terminal. I checked them. I couldn’t possibly carry everything.”
“We’ll pick them up.”
I drove over there. She gave me the check. I felt frightened to leave her in the car alone with the money. What else could I do? Carry it with me? I went on in and got her bags, four of them, and put them in the back seat of the Ford. She hadn’t moved a muscle. We drove away.
“I didn’t think you went for blondes,” she said. “I thought brunettes were your dish.”
“Cut it out, Shirley.”
“Did she like to do it with her clothes on or off?”
“Stop it.”
Her tone was flat. “You treated her awfully, Jack, really, you did. She was crying. She must have felt very bad. Is that any way to treat a girl?”
I clamped my lips tight.
“Jack.”
I gripped the steering wheel, thinking about those cops back at the apartment.
“Was she as good as I am?” When I didn’t answer, she said, “I really want to know, Jack. Honestly. Tell me, just between us—was she better?”
I gnawed the inside of my cheek.
“I suppose we all have our points,” she said, “You called her Grace. Grace is such a nice name. It has a certain fillip to it, don’t you think? I mean, it’s—well, bold, you might say, but not too bold. There’s a certain feeling of mystery—”
“Please, Shirley. You’ve ragged me enough.”
“It’s just that I’m interested. It’s a wonder you never mentioned her to me. She has a beautiful body. She
