I hated her as I had never hated anyone before. She had me where she wanted me. A word
from her and they’d send me to the chair. I was fixed unless I did exactly what she told me.
No other girls.
I thought of Ginny.
“We have all the money in the world,” Della went on. “This is the biggest moment in my
life. The biggest moment in your life, too. Can you believe it?”
“I can believe it all right,” I said.
She slid her arms around my neck. I stood looking down into the black, hard, triumphant
eyes.
“What’s it feel like to be a millionaire?”
I said it felt fine.
“Kiss me, Johnny.”
I kissed her. I even caught hold of her, crushing her to me. I even carried her over to the
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divan.
Up to now she had been a lot smarter than I. If I was to save my neck I had to be the one to
be smarter, and I had to be patient, too.
I knelt over her and grinned down at her. It would have been easy to have put my hands on
her white throat and throttled her, but that wouldn’t have been smart. If I were going to beat
this rap I’d have to out-fox her. Killing her wouldn’t help me. It would only make things
worse. With her help I had covered up one murder. I knew I wouldn’t get away with another.
No, I had to out-fox her somehow. I wouldn’t do it in five minutes, but I was going to do it.
V
The next four weeks were spent consolidating our position as Della called it. What she
really meant was she was consolidating her position. I had kittle to say in the matter.
Although she didn’t refer to it again, I knew she didn’t believe for one moment that I had
lost myself when I had been away from the casino during those nine hours she kept guard
over Reisner’s body. Nor did she believe that the girl I had said had given me a lift was a
complete stranger to me. Instead of being her partner, I found myself acting as her assistant,
and having to pretend I was satisfied with the position.
Trust her to be one jump ahead of me all the time. When I had left her alone with Reisner’s
body, she had gone through his pockets, and had got his keys and the combination of the safe.
But she didn’t tell me what the combination was, nor did I set eyes on the keys.
The agreement between us had been that we should share the reserve: a quarter of a million
for her, and a quarter for me, but I didn’t get it.
“We’re in business now, Johnny,” she said, when I rather hesitantly suggested it was time
my share was paid over. “We need the reserve. Being in control of a money-maker like the
casino is fifty times better than a lump sum of money.”
I didn’t see it that way. With a quarter of a million I could have skipped out of the country
and taken Ginny with me, but with the hundred bucks Della paid me each week, all found,
including clothes, I wasn’t going to get far, and she knew it.
“You’re not used to money, Johnny,” she went on, lying on the divan, her wrap open,
showing me her legs. “I have plans for you. You’re going to get your share, but not just yet.
I’m keeping it for you; investing it. I know the markets, you don’t. I’ll have a fortune for you
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in a little while. Be patient.”
Neither of us believed this nonsense, but there was nothing I could do about it.
“Besides, if you want anything, you know you have only to ask me for it,” she continued,
smiling at me. “I want you to be happy, darling. You are happy, aren’t you?”
