She was already crawling away from me, and I went after her. A few seconds later we were standing together in the darkness, near the exit of the Studio. We paused to listen.
There wasn’t a sound.
‘I’ll lead the way,’ she said. ‘Keep close to me.’
We moved out of the Studio into the hot, dark night. There were stars, but the moon hadn’t come up yet. I could just see her as she paused to look into the darkness, the way I was looking.
‘Are you scared?’ she asked, moving close to me. I hated the feel of her slight, hot body, but my back was against the wall of the studio and I couldn’t get away from her. ‘I’m not. This sort of job never scares me, but I think you’re scared.’
‘Okay, so I’m scared,’ I said, shoving her away. ‘Does that satisfy you?’
‘You don’t have to be. They can’t do anything to you worse than you have already done to yourself.
That’s something I’m always tel ing myself.’
‘You’re nuts! What kind of talk is that supposed to be?’
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get the money. It’l be easy.’
She moved away into the darkness and I followed her.
All day, she had been carrying a sling bag over her shoulder. When she paused outside the casting director’s bungalow, I heard her zip the bag open.
I stood close to her, listening, aware of the thudding of my heart beats, feeling my blood pounding through my veins and I was scared silly.
I heard her fiddling with the lock. She must have been very expert. In a few seconds, I heard the lock snap back.
Together we entered the dark office. We paused, waiting for our eyes to become used to the faint light from the stars we could see through the uncurtained window. After a few seconds we could see the outline of the desk across the room.
We went over to it and Rima knelt beside it.
‘You keep watch,’ she said. ‘This shouldn’t take long.’
I was shaking with fright by now.
‘I don’t want to go ahead with this,’ I said. ‘Let’s get out of here!’
‘Don’t be a quit er!’ she said sharply. ‘I’m not giving up now.’
There was a sudden gleam of light as she turned the beam of a flashlight on the lock of the drawer.
Then she sat on the floor and began to hum softly under her breath.
I waited, my heart thumping, listening to the tiny scratching noise she was making as she worked on the lock.
‘It’s tricky,’ she said, ‘but I’l fix it in a moment.’
But she didn’t. The minutes dragged by: the scratching noise began to get on my nerves. Now she had stopped humming and I could hear her swearing under her breath.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked, moving away from the window to stare over the desk at her.
‘It’s a toughie, but I’l beat it.’ She sounded quite calm. ‘Leave me alone. Let me concentrate.’
‘Let’s get out of here!’
‘Oh, quiet down!’
I turned back to the window, then my heart gave a sudden bound, leaving me breathless.
Outlined against the starlit darkness I could see the head and shoulders of a man who was looking through the window.
I didn’t know if he could see me. It was dark in the office, but he seemed to be staring directly at me.
His shoulders looked immense, and on his head was a flat peaked cap that turned me cold.
‘There’s someone out there,’ I said, but the words didn’t get beyond my dry lips.
Rima said, ‘I’ve fixed it!’
‘There’s someone out there!’
‘I’ve got it open!’
‘Didn’t you hear me? Someone’s outside!’
‘Get under cover!’
I looked wildly around the dark room. Sweat, as cold as ice, was running down my face. I started across the room as the door was flung open. The light clicked on.
The impact of the hard, bright light on me was like a blow on the head.
‘Make a move and I’l blast you!’
A cop voice: tough, hard and full of confidence. I looked towards the door.
He stood in the open doorway, a .45 in his brown muscular hand, pointing at me. He was all-cop: big, broad and terrifying.
‘What are you doing in here?’
Slowly, I put up my shaking hands. I had a horrible feeling he was going to shoot me.
‘I – I – I…’
‘Keep your hands like that!’
He didn’t know Rima was crouching behind the desk. My one thought now was to cover her: to get out of the office before he found her.
Somehow I managed to get some control over my shaking nerves.
‘I lost my way,’ I said. ‘I was going to sleep here.’
‘Yeah? You’l sleep somewhere a lot safer than here. Come on. Move slowly and keep your hands up.’
I moved towards him.
‘Hold it!’ He was staring at the desk. ‘Have you been trying to bust into that?’
‘No… I tel you…’
‘Back up against the wall! Move!’
I backed up against the wall.
‘Turn around!’
I faced the wall.
There was a long moment of complete silence.
The only sound in my ears was the thud-thud-thud of my heart beats: then there came a violent, shattering crash of gunfire.
The sound, enormous in the room made me cringe. I looked over my shoulder, thinking the guard had walked right into Rima and had killed her.
He was standing by the desk, bent double. His smart cap had fallen off, showing a bald spot at the back of his head. His gauntlet gloves were pressed to his stomach, his gun lay on the floor.
From between the fingers of his gloves, blood began to leak, then there was a second bang of gunfire.
I saw the flash of the gun coming from behind the desk.
The guard gave a strangled grunt: the sound a fighter makes when his opponent has sunk in one that really cripples. Then, slowly, he tipped over and spread out on the floor.
I stood there, staring, my hands still in the air, sick enough to throw up.
Rima straightened up from behind the desk. In her hand was a smoking .38. She looked indifferently at the guard. She hadn’t even lost colour.
‘There’s no money,’ she said savagely. ‘The drawer’s empty.’
I scarcely heard what she was saying.
I stared at the guard, watching the trickle of blood move out of him in a thin thread across the polished parquet floor.
‘Let’s get out of here!’
The urgent rasp in her voice brought me to my senses.
‘You’ve kil ed him!’
‘He would have kil ed me, wouldn’t he?’ She stared coldly at me. ‘Come on, you fool! Someone will have heard the shooting!’
