Texas by the Tail

had offered.

He turned back around from the bar, again found himself facing Red. 'Well?' he said. 'Any more nutty questions?'

'Don't you get sarcastic with me, Mitch!'

'Well, don't act like a damned fool, then! I- Ouch!' he said, for Red had suddenly slapped him. 'Why the hell did you do that?'

'I'll do it again if you call me a damned fool! My mother took that guff all her life but I'm not going to!'

'What? What the hell has your mother got to do with it?'

'And you just stop cursing me, too!'

'But goddammit, I-'

Red slapped him again. Mitch grabbed her, hauled her kicking and squirming to the lounge, and turned her over his knee. Jerking up her housecoat, he gave her bare bottom a resounding whack!

'Now, let's knock it off,' he said, jerking her upright again. 'We forget Zearsdale, get me? It's all over, kaput!'

'Oh, no it isn't,' Red said. 'Don't you kid yourself it is, Mr. Mitch Corley!'

Her red hair was tumbled around her face. She tossed it back, her breasts swelling and trembling as she fought to control herself.

'I'll tell you when it'll be over, Mitch. When you answer just one question for me. Do we or don't we have more than a hundred thousand dollars put away?'

'Wh-aat?' he laughed shakily. 'What kind of a crazy question is that?'

'Answer me, Mitch!'

'But it doesn't make sense! You've been with me all these years. How could I have blown more than a hundred grand on myself?'

The question threw her for a moment. 'Well,' she said, 'I didn't say that you had spent it on yourself. But-'

'Well, I should hope not! I've always given you better than I've taken for myself. Everything I've done has been for you. Why, my God, honey-'

'Wait!' She cut him off with a gesture. 'Just tell me the truth, Mitch. That's all I ask-just the truth. Do we have the money?'

'Yes!' he snapped. 'Yes, yes, yes!' He snatched the key to the safe-deposit box from his pocket. 'It's right here in town! Do you want me to take you down and show it to you?'

Red looked down at the key. She brought her eyes up to look into his. 'Yes,' she said.

'But-You do?'

Red nodded evenly. 'I don't think you're telling the truth, Mitch. So, yes, I do want you to take me to the bank and show me the money.'

Mitch shook his head. 'I don't think you know what you're saying, Red. We have to trust each other. If we don't, we can't operate together.'

'I know that. I was wondering if you did.'

Mitch shrugged. He said all right, if that was the way she wanted it.

'That's the way I want it,' Red said.

'Very well.' He consulted his watch. 'We can have lunch somewhere along the way. Or would you rather have a bite here?'

'We'll eat later,' Red said. 'After I've seen that dough. And before you can con me out of seeing it.'

12

There was a certain banker in Houston. There is a certain banker in almost every large city. His position will be one of importance, an assistant-cashier, or better. Technically, he does nothing illegal-although discovery can cost him his job-yet he reaps heavily from the operators.

Perhaps they invented him-the con men, the blue-sky operators, the hustlers and high-flying gamblers. Perhaps they merely discovered him. The question is akin to the chickenor-the-egg riddle. At any rate, in the coming together of him and his clients, almost never the bank's clients, there is a profitable conjunction of their necessity and his opportunity.

His charges are extremely high, not only because of the risk to his job but because his clients have to have him, in certain kinds of hustles, whereas he does not have to have them. So they can pay what he asks or go to hell. But assuming that they are willing to pay…

Want to move a sight draft in an hour? The banker can do it for you.

Want to impress a chump? The banker will treat you like a long-lost brother.

Want to show a bundle of flash? The banker will benevolently count it out for you. (But don't try to walk away with it.)

In Fort Worth, not so many years ago, a rag mob played a rancher against the wall for seventy-five big ones. It was a bald swindle, and the lads wound up where all bad hustlers go. But not the banker, the key man in the frammis. There was no provable crime to pin on him… Mitch got the car out, and was waiting for Red when she came down. As they drove into the city, he sensed her occasional sidewise looks. The doubt that his calmness was producing in her. But he said nothing, and she remained stubbornly silent. He put the car on the bank's parking lot. Helping her out politely, he escorted her into the bank. And here at last she began to

weaken. Red didn't know anything about banks. Her only contact with them had been indirect and unpleasant-their more or less constant harassment of her father's family.

'Mitch…' She shivered slightly in the vaulted vastness. 'Let it go, honey.'

Mitch said it was too late to let it go-and it was. Taking her by the arm, he steered her firmly toward the railed-off enclosure occupied by upper-echelon executives, and stopped at the desk of an assistant vice-president.

The man's name was Agate, a middling middle-aged man with colorless lips, rimless glasses and a thinly-haired scalp that was as pink as a baby's bottom.

'Why, yes,' he said, accepting the key to the safe-deposit box. 'I'll be glad to handle this for you. If you'll just sit down, please…'

They sat down, and he departed. Mitch took out a package of cigarettes, proffered one to Red. She refused with a nervous little jerk of her head, and he lit one for himself.

Agate returned. He placed an oblong box on the desk, then withdrew a few feet so that they could have a kind of privacy. Mitch picked up the box, and turned it upside down.

The flash tumbled out off the desk, a cascade of large-denomination bills. Leaning back, he told Red to start counting.

'Aah, no, Mitch…' She gave her head another little jerk. 'Let's just get out of here.'

'Count it!' he insisted.

She gave him a pleading look, an angrily pleading look. She picked up a packet of bills, and laid it down again. Blindly, she picked up another pack, gave it a clumsy push toward the first. Then, with an almost desperate motion, she stood up.

'Mitch…' A begging whisper. 'Please, honey.'

'Yes?' he said. 'You mean you're satisfied?'

'Yes! Yes, I am, darn you!'

'Well…'

'Please! Please come on.'

Mitch said he would have to wait for the money to be put away, and the key returned to him. Red said that she would meet him at the car. And she left hastily, not looking back.

He followed her after a few minutes. She obviously felt miserable, ashamed of herself, but he could