Jack lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender.
‘I’d welcome it! Seriously, Jeff, I’ve never seen anyone work the way you have worked these last two weeks. You have earned your days off. Okay, go wherever you want to, but there is just one thing: if you are in as bad a spot as I think you must be, I want to share it with you.’
‘I can handle it,’ I said. ‘Thanks all the same.’
I got home around eleven o’clock: the first time I had been reasonably early for two weeks. Sarita was preparing for bed as I walked into the apartment.
She had got over her disappointment about the cottage by now, and we were more or less on the usual terms: perhaps not quite, but close enough. I knew she had been watching the way I had been working, and it had been worrying her.
I was feeling pretty knocked out, but knowing that at last I was going on the hunt for Rima kept me going.
‘I’m leaving for New York tomorrow first thing,’ I said. ‘There are a number of things I have to take care of, and I’ll be away for three or four days. I’ve got to get a lower estimate for a bunch of items to do with the bridge, and New York is the only place where I’ll get what I want.’
She came to me and put her arms around me.
‘You’re killing yourself, Jeff. Surely you don’t have to work this hard?’
She looked up at me, her brown eyes worried.
‘It’ll ease off. It’s been tough, but I had to clear my desk before I could make this trip.’
‘Darling, could I go with you? I haven’t been to New York for years. I’d love it. We could meet after your business dates, and while you are tied up, I could look around the shops.’
Why I hadn’t thought that she would want to come with me I can’t imagine. It was the most obvious thing she would suggest. For a long, painful moment I stared at her, not able to think up an excuse to put her off. Maybe I said all I need to have said by looking at her like this. I saw the excitement die out of her eyes and her face fell.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said and turned away and began to straighten the cushions on the settee. ‘Of course you won’t want me around. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry I mentioned it.’
I drew in a long slow breath. I hated seeing her look like this. I hated to hurt her as I knew I had hurt her.
‘It just so happens, Sarita, I will be tied up morning, noon and night. I’m sorry, too, but I think it would be better if you stayed here this trip. Next trip will be different.’
‘Yes.’ She moved across the room. ‘Well, I guess we had better go to bed.’
It wasn’t until I had turned off the light and we were isolated in our twin beds that she said out of the darkness, ‘Jeff, what are we going to do with our money? Anything?’
If I didn’t find her and kill her, we were going to give our money to Rima, but I didn’t tell Sarita this.
‘We’re going to build a place of our own,’ I said, but there was no confidence in my voice. ‘We’re going to have some fun as soon as I get all this work behind me.’
‘Jack has bought a Thunderbird,’ Sarita said. ‘He has paid out twelve thousand dollars to redecorate and furnish his apartment. What have we done with our share of the money?’
‘Never mind about Jack. He’s a bachelor and he doesn’t have to worry about his future. I’ve got to be sure you are taken care of if anything happened to me.’
‘Does that mean I shall have to wait until you are dead or we are old before spending a dime of it?’
‘Now, look…’ The irritation in my voice sounded harsh even to me. ‘We’ll spend the money…’
‘I’m sorry. I was only asking. It seems odd that you should make sixty thousand dollars, and yet we still live the same way, still wear the same clothes, never go anywhere, never do anything, and I can’t even go to New York with you. I suppose I’m being unreasonable, but for the life of me I can’t see why you are working like a slave day in and night out and neither of us are having any fun out of it.’
I felt a hot rush of blood to my head. Goaded beyond endurance, I lost control of my temper.
‘For Heaven’s sake, Sarita,’ I yelled at her. ‘Stop this! I’m trying to build a bridge! I haven’t even got the money yet! We’ll spend it when I’ve got it!’
There was a pause, then she said in a cold, shocked voice, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to irritate you.’
Then followed a deadly silence. It went on and on. We both knew the other was awake, unable to sleep, worried and bitterly hurt.
The shadowy ghost of Rima stood between our beds, pushing us apart, threatening our happiness.
I had to find her.
I had to rid myself of her.
II
I arrived at Los Angeles Airport a little after one o’clock and took a taxi to the Pacific and Union Bank.
Every spare moment, and they were few, that I had had during the past two weeks, I had wracked my brains as to how I was to get the address of Rima’s other bank. It was certain the Pacific and Union would have a record of the address, and my first move was to try to find out how and where this record was kept.
As I paid off the taxi, I was relieved to see that the bank was a big one. I had feared it might have been a small branch affair with only a few staff who would remember me. But this was a vast building with a commissionaire on the door, and a continuous flow of customers going in and out.
I walked into the big reception hall. On either side were the grills behind which stood the tellers. At every station was a small group of people, waiting. Around and behind these stations was a gallery where I could see clerks busy with calculating machines, duplicators and such like. At the far end of the hall I could see the glass cages for the bank officers.
I walked to one of the grills and got behind the short queue. Murmuring apologies, I reached over and took a pay-in slip from the rack. From my wallet I took ten five dollar bills. After a few minutes, there was only one customer ahead of me and I could reach the counter. I wrote in bold block letters at the head of the pay-in slip
The man in front of me moved away and I pushed the ten five dollar bills and the pay-in slip under the grill.
The teller took the slip, lifted his rubber stamp, then paused and frowned. He glanced up at me.
I was leaning against the counter, staring away from him, my face expressionless.
‘I don’t think this is correct, sir,’ he said to me.
I turned and stared at him.
‘What do you mean?’
He hesitated, looked again at the pay-in slip, then said, ‘If you will wait a moment…’
It was working out the way I had hoped it would. He took the slip and leaving his station, he walked briskly down the long counter to the stairs that led up to the gallery. I stood back so I could watch him.
He went up the stairs and along the gallery to where a girl was sitting at a big machine. He spoke to her.
She swung around in her chair to a big card that hung on the wall. I watched her run her ringer down what seemed a list of names, then she turned to the machine, pressed buttons, and after a moment, she reached forward and then gave the teller a card.
My heart was thumping.
I knew then that she had operated an automatic Finding and Filing machine which could produce the card containing particulars of any client by pressing numbered keys: each client having his or her own particular number.
When the keys were pressed, the card would be shot into a tray.
I watched the teller study the card and then my pay-in slip. He gave the card to the girl and then hurried back to me.
