Did that mean Jordan cared for her?
He must, she thought. She remembered his touch, his manner. Of course it had to have been an act at first (and she blushed at the memory of the first night, the shyness, the meticulously planned accidental trail that led to his bed). But somewhere along the line it must have turned real, or at least partially real. Or else why would he have let her live?
Unless, of course, they had decided to kill her later.
She shuddered violently. Everything was happening too fast for her and she was unable to react to it She thought briefly of her parents, her children. She couldn’t focus on them. They now had no reality for her. All of her sense of reality was concentrated here, in this car, with these men.
These bank robbers.
Jordan, her Jordan, was a bank robber. (And to think that she had feared never to see him again. “You’ll never look pretty again” — talking to mirrors like an idiot.) A bank robber, a bank robber.
And she held on to the thought and blushed furiously; between her legs she was suddenly marvelously wet.
Twenty-six
Giordano came to in a bed. He sat up and looked around warily. His memory was spotty and he wasn’t sure where he was. Then he recognized a picture on the opposite wall. He was in a bedroom at the Tarrytown house. He checked his thigh, which ached furiously. It was bandaged now and the bandage looked competent enough. There was more pain on the left side of his rib cage, and he discovered another bandage there where the first bullet had grazed him. Giordano didn’t even remember that he’d been hit there.
He decided he was in a safe place and in reasonably good condition. He stretched out and let himself pass out again.
When he opened his eyes another time, the colonel was sitting by his bedside reading a book. Giordano coughed softly and the colonel set his book aside. “You’re in Tarrytown,” Cross said. “You were shot in the course of the robbery. Do you remember it, Louis?”
“Yes.”
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“I don’t think so. What time is it?”
“Twenty-three forty-five.”
“Where is everybody?”
“In New Jersey. To rescue Edward.”
“Just three of them? Jesus.” He sat up, then winced at a spasm of pain from his leg. “You get the bullet out?”
“Yes. You were quite fortunate, incidentally. No bone damage and it missed the artery. It did nick a vein, so that you lost a bit of blood, but you should be ready to travel in a day or so. And you couldn’t possibly have gone with them tonight. Don’t even think of it.”
“It’ll be tough with three.”
“I doubt it. They know the grounds and the placement of the guards and the procedure. I don’t expect trouble.”
“You don’t look happy, sir.”
“I’m not happy. I won’t be happy until I learn Edward is all right.” The colonel’s face clouded. “The guard died,” he said.
“Oh. Did I get him or was it Ben? My memory’s a little spotty.”
“It was Ben.”
“Well.”
The colonel sipped his drink. He was drinking Scotch and soda, and Giordano thought about Scotch and soda and decided that he didn’t want anything at all just yet.
“The girl,” he said suddenly.
“Sleeping. Helen gave her a sedative.”
“I forgot all about her.” He straightened up in the bed. “I could use a cigarette,” he said.
“Right there on the table.”
“Oh, right.” He lit up and drew smoke into his lungs. “What do we do now?”
“She can’t return to her former life, Louis. Witnesses reported that she recognized one of the holdup men and called him by name. And got the name wrong, believe it or not. She must have called you Jordan. The witnesses heard George.”
“That’s a break.”
“Yes. But you see where we stand. She’s in a position to give them full descriptions of all of us. Even if she were determined not to talk, the police wouldn’t leave her alone.”
“If she went away for a while until things cooled down—”
“We took that bank for almost a quarter of a million dollars. And as far as the police are concerned, we were also the ones who took the Passaic bank. They’ve made that much of the connection already, incidentally. By tomorrow they should know of Platt’s relationship to both of the banks, which will dot the last I and cross the final T. In any case, they can only regard that girl as the sole key to two robberies in which three lives were lost. Things will never cool down, Louis.”
“Then, what do we do with her?” The colonel didn’t say anything, and Giordano said, “No, I don’t buy that. It’s no good, sir.”
“I didn’t say anything yet, Louis.”
“But what you didn’t say was that we kill her, and no, sir, I just won’t buy it.”
“I haven’t tried to sell it to you, Louis.”
Giordano didn’t seem to have heard. “The guard was something different. The guard was completely different. He was one of the soldiers on the other side, and on top of everything he was a schmuck who had to try and be a hero. It wasn’t his money. It wasn’t even that he was just doing his job. He must have run his ass off getting out the side and around the building in time to get himself killed. Screw the guard. And the bank VP that Frank shot, screw him too. He’s a gangster. So the hell with him.
“But not the girl. If we start killing good people just because they’re in the goddamned way, no, I’m sorry, sir, no, I don’t like it.”
The colonel was silent for a few minutes, and Giordano wondered if maybe he had talked too freely. He reviewed his words and decided he meant what he had said.
Cross said, “Would you rather marry her?”
“Her? Christ, no. I don’t want to marry anybody. And not her. She’s a good kid but nothing special. No, I don’t want to marry her.”
“It might be one or the other, Louis. Marry her or kill her, because the first law of nature has to be self-preservation.”
“I know, but—”
“Even if you or I were willing to risk the consequences of releasing her, we couldn’t do it. We have our responsibilities to the others.”
“I know, sir.”
“You’ll want to give this some thought, Louis.”
“Yes.” He considered. “If I gave her a chunk of dough and let her run—”
“They’d pick her up in a week.”
“I guess they would, sir.”
Cross pushed his chair backward and pivoted to face the door. “I’ll get out of your way for a while, Louis. Will you take something to eat now? Steak and eggs?”
“That does sound like a good idea.”
“And a drink? Or would you rather have coffee?”
“I think coffee.”
“Good.” He paused at the door. “Louis? You ought to take your time thinking about this. See the girl before you decide. Sort out your own feelings.”
“I’m sure as hell not going to marry her.”
“Don’t make any decision just now.”
“So I guess we’ll have to kill her, sir.”
“You’ll think it over, Louis.”
Twenty-seven
Simmons and Murdock went over the fence at the back of the Platt estate. Even with the current on, it wasn’t a hard fence to get over. They hit the backyard at opposite sides and killed the three yard men in under five minutes. Simmons got two with a twenty-inch garrote of piano wire. Murdock used a knife on the other one.