“I've had a talk with Ackie,” I said, pulling off my shirt. “He's crazy with excitement. The whole thing's blown up an' Spencer's in jail. Everyone's in jail, an' you an' I don't have to worry any more.”
She said, “Is Lee Curtis in jail?”
I stopped, holding my trousers in one hand, and stared at her. “Lee Curtis? Why worry about him? Ackie said they were all in jail.”
“But did he say Lee Curtis was in jail?” Her voice was almost hard.
I came over and sat on the bed. “What makes you ask about him... more than the others?”
She looked at me in an odd way, and shook her head. “I just wanted to know.”
There was something behind this, but I didn't want to press it. “He didn't mention Curtis, but he's being taken care of, all right.”
“Oh,” she said in a flat voice, and looked at her finger-nails carefully. I sat on the bed, in my B.V.D.'s. I was beginning to feel like hell, but I couldn't get to sleep until I got this straightened.
“Tell me, baby,” I said gently.
She looked up at me, and her eyes were big and wild. “Nick, do you love me?” she said. “Do you really love me? Not just for yesterday and to-day, but for to-morrow and all the to-morrows?”
I put my hand over hers. “You're everythin' to me, Mardi,” I said, and meant it.
She said, “Will you do something big for me? Something that'll mean you love me?”
I nodded. “Sure, what is it?”
“I want you and me to go away. Never come back to this State. To go south a long way, and start all over again—will you do that?”
“You mean never come back?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“But, Mardi, we've gotta live. My connections are here. I've lived here so long. I'm known here. I'll keep away with you until the trial is over, but if I've to earn dough it's here that I can earn it.”
She shook her head. “Money doesn't matter. I have all we want.” She pulled a long envelope out of the bedclothes and put it into my hand. “Look, it's for you.”
I opened the envelope blankly and shook out a bundle of bearer bonds. There were twenty thousand dollars. I pushed the bonds away from me and sat a little stunned, looking at her.
“They're mine,” she said fiercely. “They're for you and me—with that, surely we can go away and you can start again.”
I said, “But, Mardi, that's a lot of money for a girl to have. How did you get it?”
She said, “At the Mackenzie Fabrics. I saved and I heard tips. Spencer invested for me ”
“I see.”
She began to cry. “Say you'll take the money and come away with me, Nick—please....”
I rolled into bed beside her, shoving the envelope under her pillow. “Suppose we leave it until to-morrow? We'll be able to think clearly to-morrow,” I said.
I felt her stiffen. “No,” she said, “it must be now. I couldn't sleep. I must know. It's so important to me.”
“Why is it, Mardi? Why should you want to hide yourself away?”
“Nick, you'll lose me if you go back,” she said, suddenly sobbing violently. “I can't tell you why, but I feel that is what will happen. You must say now.”
And because nothing really mattered to me except her happiness, and because I knew she loved me as much as I loved her, I gave her the promise.
She said, “You really mean that?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We'll take the car on and we'll go to the coast. We'll get us a small house somewhere near the sea with a garden and we'll be just you an' I.”
“And you'll be happy?”
“Sure, I'll be happy. I'll find something to do.” Lying there in the dark, I suddenly felt fine about the idea. We'd got money, we were going to the sun, and we had each other.
CHAPTER TWENTY
WE GOT A PLACE a few miles out from Santa Monica. It was small, but it was cute—the kind of place movie-stars week-end in. As soon as we saw it, we fell for it. The garden ran down to the sea, and if you wanted a bathe you just opened a gate in the wall and stepped on to the hot yellow sands. The sea was right ahead.
The house had two bedrooms and a large sitting-room leading out to a piazza that encircled the whole building. The garden was big enough to screen the house from the road. The rent was high, but we didn't think twice about it—we took it.
Maybe I should have felt a heel taking all that money from Mardi, but I didn't. If the money had been mine, I should have wanted Mardi to share it with me. Well, the money was hers, and I wasn't going to spoil things by refusing to share with her.
