I thought, in my ignorance and innocence, that all life was like that. It was the way society was organized.
But now I found myself in a netherworld where irrationality reigned. It wasn’t only that I had become a creature of chance and accident, although they were certainly present. It was that my world had become fragmented, without system or sequence. There was no clarity or coherence. I couldn’t find meaning.
Perhaps we would succeed in leaving the country with the Brandenberg jewels. Perhaps not. Perhaps I would marry, or at least form a lasting relationship with Jack Donohue. Perhaps not. Perhaps he would desert me or kill me. It was possible.
Anything was possible. And, I discovered, an existence without order, in which anything might happen, is difficult to live. Nerves tingle with rootlessness. The brain is in a constant churn, attempting to compute permutations and combinations. One unconsciously shortens one’s frame of reference. The pleasure of the moment becomes more important than the happiness of the future. The future itself becomes a never-never land. The past is pushed into fog. Only the present has meaning.
That’s how we lived for almost two weeks — in the blessed present. We woke each morning about 8:00, had either a small breakfast in our room or walked down to Atlantic
Boulevard for pancakes or eggs in a restaurant. Then we bought local and New York newspapers at the Oceanside Shopping Center and walked back to Rip’s.
There was nothing in any of the papers concerning us or the Brandenberg robbery. Nothing on TV. More recent crimes had been committed. There were wars, floods, plane crashes, famines. The north was gripped in a cold wave that sent thousands of tourists and vacationers flocking south.
At about 10:00, we went out to the beach or sat at the motel pool. Jack usually stayed in the shade of a beach umbrella, wearing Bermuda shorts and a short-sleeved polo shirt. I broiled myself in direct sunlight, wearing my too-small string bikini, a scarf tied around my hair so I didn’t have to sweat in that damned wig.
I doused myself in oil (Jack obligingly layered my back), and I grew a marvelous tan, the best I’ve ever had. We rarely ate lunch, but usually had a few gin-and-tonics in the afternoon. We met a few people, tourists staying for a few days, and talked lazily of this and that.
Then, when the sun had lost its strength, we went into our little efficiency apartment and napped, or made love, or both. In the evening we showered, dressed, and went out for dinner, a different place every day. Later we might stop at a bar or disco for a few nightcaps. Then home to bed, usually before midnight.
It was a totally mindless existence. I felt that, under that hot sun, my brain was turning to mush — and I loved it. Occasionally, during our first few days at Rip’s, I’d ask Jack when he was going into Miami to make arrangements. ‘Soon,’ he’d say. ‘Soon.’ After a while I stopped asking, it didn’t seem important. The money hadn’t run out yet.
I think that, in a way, we were both catching our breath at Rip’s. I was toasting my body brown and swimming in the high surf. Jack was lying slumped in blued shadow, as torpid as a lizard on a rock. He wanted to go to the local horse and dog tracks, but didn’t. I wanted to go shopping, but didn’t. We simply existed, and woke each morning secretly pleased at our good fortune in being alive for another day.
But one morning we awoke and, while Donohue was checking his wallet, realized our cash reserve was shrinking.
Hardly at the panic level, but low enough to require replenishing. When money is going out freely, and nothing is coming in, the bankroll dwindles at a ferocious rate.
So Donohue decided to drive into Miami the next day. We discussed timing, procedures, and contingency plans. It was agreed that he would go alone, leaving the bulk of the Brandenberg loot in our apartment at Rip’s. But he would take one big necklace of startling beauty and value, just as a sample to show an interested fence, if he was able to locate one. Also, we would cut up one of the heavy chokers, prizing out individual stones. Those he would attempt to peddle wherever he could, for ready cash.
Til be back by 7:00 in the evening at the latest,’ he said. ‘Remember, that’s cut-off time. If I’m not back by then, or haven’t called, it means I’ve been nobbled. Then you grab what’s left of the ice and take off.’
‘Take off?’ I said. ‘How? Where to?’
‘Cab. Bus. Plane. Train. Walking. Do what you have to do. Just get out of here. Fast. Because if Rossi grabs me, I’m going to talk. Eventually. You know that, don’t you?’
I leaned forward to kiss him.
‘I know,’ I said, nodding. ‘But you said your luck’s running hot. You’ll come back.’
‘Sure I will, babe,’ he said, pouring on one of those high-powered grins. ‘I’m too mean to die; you know that.’
I looked at him critically. His bleached hair was now combed straight back from his forehead. His eyebrows were lightened, and he had grown a wispy moustache that we had attempted to dye with indifferent results. But I doubted if anyone would recognize him from a reported description.
I had an odd thought: that with his lightened hair and eyebrows, he resembled Dick Fleming. They could have been brothers.
We spent that evening cutting up the choker and prying out the diamonds. Then we went to bed early. Our sex that night was like our first time together when he had been fierce, hard, filled with desperate energy. He was a one-way lover again, taking what he wanted. He wore me out. Almost.
The next morning he left most of the remaining cash with me, wrapped the big necklace and loose stones in handkerchiefs and slid them in his inside jacket pocket. He carried a revolver in his belt and concealed an automatic pistol under the front seat of the car.
It was time for him to go. He paused a moment, frowning.
‘What is it?’ 1 said.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I may call you and tell you to bring the rest of the jewels to a certain place. You know?’
‘Sure.’
‘But I might be under a gun when I make that call. If I call you “Jan” or “Jannie,” you’ll know it’s okay and you can bring the stuff. But if I call you “Bea,” you’ll know someone’s forcing me to make the call. Got that?’
I nodded dumbly.
Then he kissed me.
‘See you around,’ he said.
‘Stop in any time,’ I said.
He smiled and was gone.
I went out to the beach and spread my towel, as far away from other sunbathers as I could get. I had brought along a quart thermos of chilled white wine, and I sipped that all afternoon and thought of nothing. Two men spoke to me, but I didn’t answer. After a while they moved away to easier pickings.
It was a smoky day, the sun in and out of clouds shaped like dragons. I lay there and felt myself, felt my skin burning and tight. I wanted to be naked. I wanted that sun inside me, searing and consuming.
I went back to the motel about 3:00 and took a hot shower to take the sting away. Then I put on a loose shift and did more typing. I had persuaded Donohue to let me buy a portable, promising to type only during the day. Now 1 continued converting the handwritten legal pads to typed manuscript pages.
It was a mechanical job: no thinking required. If I wondered why I was doing it, what importance Project X could possibly have other than representing a horrible danger if the cops ever got hold of it, I suppose I thought of it as the last slender link with my past, with a world lost and gone, evidence of a corner turned.