He had not, of course, broken his promise. He had told her he would cause her to lay down in green pastures, and that was exactly what he had done, though not letting her in on the secret, even lovers had to keep their little secrets. But he had most certainly done what he’d promised. Suddenly, he began chuckling. Holding her close, his lips against her throat, he began chuckling, and she said, “Stop that, you nut, it tickles.”
“Do you know what we just did?” he said, sitting up.
“Yes, I know what we just did,” Merilee answered, demurely lowering her skirt.
“Do you know where?”
“In the New York Public Library.”
“Right. Do you know on what?”
“On the floor.”
“Wrong.”
“Excuse me, on your jacket.”
“Wrong.”
“On what then?”
“On half a million dollars,” Mullaney said, and got to his feet and dusted off his trousers and then offered his hand to the girl. “May I?” he asked.
“Certainly,” she said, puzzled, and took his hand. He helped her to her feet, grinned, and picked up the jacket. As he dusted it off, he said, “Do you hear anything?”
“No.”
“Listen.”
“I still don’t hear anything.”
“Listen,” he said, and deliberately brushed his hand over the jacket in long sweeping palmstrokes, striking dust from the shoulders and the back and the sleeves, and keeping his head cocked to one side all the while, grinning at the girl, who kept listening and hearing nothing, and watching him as though making love had done something to his head.
“I don’t hear anything,” she said.
“Don’t you hear the rustle of silk?”
“No.”
“Don’t you hear the flutter of angels’ wings?”
“No.”
“Don’t you hear, my dear sweet girl, the sound of money?”
“I don’t hear anything,” she said.
“Have you got a knife?” he asked.
“No.”
“A scissors?”
“No.”
“Have you got a nail file in your bag?”
“All I’ve got in my bag is a driver’s license and a pearl-handled .22. Where’s the money?”
“I’ll have to tear it.”
“Tear what?”
Mullaney grinned and turned the jacket over in his hands. He could feel the stiffness of the bills sewn into the lining, could almost feel the outline of each dollar-sized packet nestling between the outer and inner fabric. He debated whether he should take the packets out one at a time and spread them across the floor at Merilee’s feet, or whether he should simply slit the hem at the bottom of the jacket and allow the packets to fall helter-skelter-come-what-may, as if it were raining money. He decided it would be nice to see it rain money, so he grinned at Merilee again (she was watching him intently, her blue eyes narrowed, a feral sexy look on her face) and then he began plucking at the lining thread at the jacket’s hem. The jacket had been excellently tailored, he had known immediately that K and O’Brien and all the others were gentlemen of taste, with good tight stitches placed close together, all sewn by hand, all designed to withstand any possible accidents on the way to Rome. Mullaney finally had to rip the first few stitches with his teeth, something his mother had warned him never to do, and then he thrust two fingers up into the torn opening, and began ripping the stitches all the way down the line, keeping the jacket bundled and bunched because he didn’t want the bills to fall out until he was ready to let it rain. When he had ripped the lining clear across the bottom, he rose from his squatting position and, still holding the jacket so that nothing could fall out of it, held it at arm’s length in both hands and said, “It’s going to rain money, Merilee.”
“Oh yes indeed let it rain,” Merilee said.
“It’s going to rain half a million dollars’ worth of money.”
“Oh yes yes yes.”
“It’s going to rain all over this floor.”
“Let it rain, baby,” the girl said.
“And then we’ll make love again,” Mullaney said.
“Half a million times,” the girl said, “one for each dollar bill.”
“Are you ready?”
“I am ready,” she said, her eyes glowing.
“Here-it-comes,” Mullaney said, “five-hundred-thousand-dollars in-American-money, ta-ra!” and he allowed the lining to fall away from the jacket.
4. Callahan
The packets of bills fell to the floor just like the rain Mullaney had expected, plop, plop, plop, great big drops of bills falling to the stone floor of the library and raising a cloud of dust which at first obscured his vision a bit, and caused him to believe that perhaps he was not quite seeing what he thought he was seeing. Plop, plop, plop, the packets kept falling out of the jacket and pattering all around while he and the girl stared down at their five-hundred-thousand-dollar rain, and the dust settled, and they kept staring down at the packets, and Mullaney wanted to weep.
The packets were worth exactly ten cents because that is how much The New York Times costs on a Friday, and that is exactly what these were made of, The New York Times. Mullaney kept staring down at the packets, which someone had cut very nicely into the shape of dollar bills, and then stacked and bound neatly with rubber bands, each packet slim enough to be sewn into a funeral jacket. He did not raise his eyes from the slowly settling dust because, to tell the truth, he was a little embarrassed about facing the girl.
“It seems to be newspaper,” he said, and cleared his throat.
“Yes indeed,” Merilee said.
They kept staring at the cut stacks of newspaper.
“Boy,” he said.
“Newspaper,” the girl said.
“Boy.”
“The New York Times, no less,” she said. “I don’t even read The New York Times.”
“Boy.”
“You know who must have done this?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Somebody who reads The New York Times.”
“I’ll bet,” Mullaney said.
“Oh my,” the girl said. “Oh my my my my my.”
“Mmm,” Mullaney said.
“Oh my.”
They were silent again.
Into the silence there came the unholy clamor of a ringing bell, startling Mullaney so much that he leaped back against the wall and then was surprised to find himself shaking. He had not realized until just this moment that the worthless collection of clipped newspapers at his feet represented something more than just the end of a gambler’s dream. This pile of garbage containing yesterday’s baseball scores and war casualties, yesterday’s stock prices and theater reviews, this worthless pile of shredded garbage lying in the dust at his feet also contained, if Mullaney was willing to read it correctly, an obituary notice announcing the untimely demise of one Andrew Mullaney himself, to take place in the not unforeseeable future. It was one thing to consider running out on Smokestack Kruger when you were in possession of half a million dollars and a beautiful blonde. It was another to think of running out on him when you had only a mangled copy of this morning’s Times and a blonde who was beginning to get a distinct hangdog expression. He could not understand the hangdog expression, but there it was, spreading across her mouth and drawing down the corners of her eyes, Oh boy, Mullaney thought, I’m going to be in pretty big trouble soon, his innate optimism refusing to allow that he was already in pretty big trouble, in fact in very big trouble.