I started to wrench violently away from her, then to grab her and howl for help. But she must have felt me tense. We were in front of the elevator, now. The gun ground deep into my ribs, hurting. She whispered. “You’d die, instantly. You wouldn’t have a chance. Don’t be a jerk. Be good for just a few more minutes and you’ll be alive tomorrow.”
The violent anger faded. Losing the money wouldn’t hurt Fran and the kids half as much as it would their losing me. “Okay,” I said. “But I think you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m broke. I deposited my money in the bank this noon.” It was a last desperate play. It didn’t work.
The elevator door opened and she whispered: “Be quiet, now.”
We got in the elevator. The operator hardly glanced at us. A guy and a gal, arm in arm, getting into an elevator. What was that to get excited about? The girl, undoubtedly, was registered here. So she was taking a friend to her room. It was early in the evening. What was wrong with that?
Neither of us spoke after she said, “Fourteen” to the operator.
I remembered, crazily, that the fourteenth floor in all hotels is really the thirteenth. It’s supposed to be less unlucky that way. It wasn’t for me.
We got out and she guided me to the left, down the corridor. I heard the elevator door slam shut behind us. There was no sound in the whole hotel. Even our footsteps were muffled on the carpeting. I began to get really scared. The hollow of my spine got wet with sweat and my shirt stuck back there. Perspiration trickled coldly down my ribs, too. I thought once again, desperately, of yanking away, making a break. But at the same instant I realized that the girl would be even less likely to hesitate about killing me up here, with no witnesses. No . . . My chance was gone. If there’d ever been any chance.
2. The Patsy
She stopped in front of 1409 and still holding that gun in my ribs, she crossed her other hand over to the right side pocket and extracted the hotel key. The door opened easily and she unhooked my arm, pulled the gun out from under her coat and shoved me inside. There was a short hallway and the room at the other end was lighted. The gun at my spine forced me along, into that room.
There was a man sitting there. I had never seen him before in my life. But he seemed to know me. He said: “Hello, Morgan.”
He was slouched in a green, leather-covered easy chair. A cigarette dangled from one of his slim, pale, long-fingered hands. Streamers of smoke went straight up. He was small and very thin, but not gangsterish-looking. Not in the movie tradition, anyhow. His hair was crew-cropped, a mousy brown color. His ears looked too large for his narrow, bony skull. He had level, gray, intelligent-looking eyes and they weren’t shifty at all. They held my gaze, almost amusedly. But his mouth was what told me I was in for a hard time. It was tiny and pursed tightly as though he was mad at somebody and all tense and strung-up, even though he was sitting there so at ease and relaxed.
Still looking at me, he said to the girclass="underline" “What the hell took you so long, Viv?”
She stood off to one side still holding the gun. “Brother!” she said. “What a Sunday-school boy. I did everything. Everything but go over and sit on his lap. I would have done that, but that spaniel-faced old barkeep didn’t seem too crazy about what I was up to. Anyhow, I couldn’t get him to bite. He was running right out on me and I had to practically kidnap him, right in the lobby. And brother, don’t think that didn’t make me nervous!”
That was funny. I’d never even given a thought to the fact that she’d probably been just as scared as I was down there. I said, suddenly: “Look, what’s this all about? If you want my money, I’ll give it to you. You’d take it, anyhow. But, please take it easy. I – I’ve got a wife and kids.” My voice broke and I felt sick, ashamed, pleading, begging with these people. But I’d have gotten down on my knees to them, right then, if it would have helped me get out of there any faster.
“Money,” the man in the chair said. He laughed. It was a quick, sputtering sound. “Sure, we’ll take your money. Throw me your wallet.”
I reached inside my jacket pocket and took out the wallet, tossed it to him. “I’d like the wallet back.”
He took out the sheaf of bills, riffled through them. He tossed the wallet back to me. “Over a hundred bucks more,” he said to the girl, “Vivian, I’ve got the papers all ready. You keep that gun on him. But if there’s any trouble, watch what you’re doing. Don’t shoot me by mistake.”
He reached down to the armchair-side old-fashioned radio, and I saw that it was already lit up, turned on. He twisted the volume knob slowly and an orchestra playing a popular song grew louder and louder until it was almost deafening in the room. He said to Vivian:
“Now, if you have to shoot, it won’t be so noticeable. Nor when he hollers. I think he’ll holler real good.”
With the racket of the radio, I could only half hear what he said. But my mind filled in the rest of it. I was suddenly confused and I felt cold and ill the way you do when you’ve got a fever and you have to get up out of bed at night. I was weak as a child.
I tried to figure what this was all about but I couldn’t make it.
I looked toward the hotel room desk and saw that it was covered with papers. The man got up out of the chair. He said: “Vivian, get behind him with that shooter and ease him over to the desk.”
She jabbed the muzzle of the gun against my spine and I stepped toward the desk. “Morgan,” the man said. His voice got taut, his words clipped. “Morgan, I’m going to ask you to sign something. I hope you refuse. I hope you try to give us trouble. Because then we’ll have to make you sign it. And that’s what I’d like to have to do.”
I looked at him and he held his hand out toward me, his skinny, white, long-fingered hands. In the pinkish palms he held two rolls of nickels. He closed his fingers around them. His knuckles stood out sharply. With the weight of those nickels in them, those knuckles would make his fists like gnarled clubs. There was suddenly a roaring in my ears and my heart seemed to be up and choking in my throat. I hadn’t been in a fight, been hit by a fist, since I was a kid. And only twice, then. I’d always hated fist fights. I’d avoided them. It made me ill to hit somebody else and to feel another’s fist making that sickly smack noise against my own face was worse.
Turning away from him, I looked down at the top paper on the desk. It was a letter on Emcee Publishing Company letterhead stationery. My eyes seemed to ache and I had trouble reading. I kept wiping the flat of my hands up and down my trousers but they still stayed slick with sweat. The letter was dated today. It said:
To Whom It May Concern:
For the past year I have steadily and regularly been embezzling company funds. All told, I have taken nearly $50,000. This was done with the aid and connivance of Miss Elizabeth Tremayne, of the Business Department. How, will be obvious, Monday, when the books are examined.
The money has all been spent on gambling on horses and in bad stock market investments. I’d hoped to win or earn the money back and prevent eventual discovery, but this did not work out.
For all the trouble and disillusion this is going to cause, I am truly sorry.
I herewith, also append a list of the dozen or more different signatures I used on the company checks, to remove any doubt that I’ve been the culprit.
(Signed)
Under this was a list of signatures, names I didn’t even recognize. But as I looked at this letter, it flashed through my mind what this was all about. Emcee Publication’s fiscal year started on Monday. A complete auditing would be made. Whoever had been embezzling knew their time was up and they couldn’t avoid discovery. I was going to be the fall guy – in advance.