Sammy said, “I told you she wasn’t asleep, that she was faking.”
Dan turned to her, his face devoid of expression. “If you heard us, you know we don’t want to do it.”
“You don’t,” she said, pressing the attack, “but Sammy does.”
Sammy grinned. “Nothing personal.”
Strangely, his sadistic jibes no longer disturbed her, now that death was so close. “That’s reassuring,” she retorted, determined to match him. He glanced sharply at her, surprised that she no longer cringed under his verbal torture.
A shaft of sunlight fell on her to warm her and renew her courage. The sunlight and the normalcy of breakfast about the kitchen table, pouring coffee and serving bacon and eggs, tended to destroy reality. It was as if she had seen a play and was discussing it with a couple of the actors.
She continued, “You might as well know that I’m not going to bed tonight, so it won’t be as easy as you thought. When you try it, I’m going to scream so loud I’ll bring half the neighborhood down on you before you finish. I’ve been quiet and done what you said because I wanted to live, but if I’m not going to . ..”
“We don’t want to,” Dan repeated. He finished the coffee with one gulp, like a man who needed it. “But we’ve got a problem. Nobody on earth knows we did the bank job but you.” He studied her sidewise, never moving his head, seeking to capture and analyze her thoughts.
She said, “If you let me go, and I said anything, you could get my father. It’d be the same as if I killed him. Do you think I’d do that?”
Sammy dropped his fork. “Hey, what do you know, she’s a con woman. Here we thought we picked up a dame who was legit and we got ourselves a con artist.”
Dan never took his gaze from her. “That’s enough, Sammy.” He switched back to her. “What do you take us for? A couple stupes? You’d run babbling to the cops the minute we turned you loose. Maybe you wouldn’t want to, but you would. It’s human nature. We all got to talk Sammy here, and me, and you. We all got to spill everything we know.”
She forced some coffee down. “You think you won’t be caught but you’re smart enough to know, Dan “
Sammy interrupted. “Hey, Jenkins, that’s good. The old buddy, buddy approach.” He mimicked her. “Dan.”
She ignored him. ” You’ve got to figure on it. So far you’ve held up a bank but if you add murder to it now
“
Sammy said, “Do you hear that, Dan? She thinks we’re amateurs. Jenkins, if Forest Lawn paid us for every time we sent them a customer
hey, Dan, that’s an idea. We ought to get a commission.”
“Don’t try to be funny,” Dan said. He rose, folded his napkin, and turned toward her. “If you’ve got any other ideas, I’m listening.”
Sammy pretended to shudder. “Gripes, gives me the creeps sitting around with the victim talking about it.” He came up with a nasty little laugh. “Doesn’t seem like good sportsmanship.”
He added, “You and your big ears, Jenkins. Now you’ve got to suffer until we put you out of your misery. And here I had it all figured out so you’d never know about it.”
Dan said, “Get lost, Sammy. Just get lost.” He added, “How about tuning in on the news?”
Sammy shrugged and rose. As he was leaving, he said to Dan, “Don’t let her con you into anything.”
Dan waited until he heard Sammy turn the radio on, then said, “You’re working on me because you think I’ve got feelings. No, sweetheart, no feelings. They’re something I can’t afford. Might cost me my hundred grand and my neck. The only reason I hesitate about putting you away, I don’t know what to do with you afterward that’d be a hundred per cent safe. You see, I don’t believe in playing the odds. I go only for a fixed winner. So I’ve got to figure it out. Something to do with you afterwards that’s a sure bet or something with you on the hoof that doesn’t get us into trouble.”
She straightened her shoulders, so he wouldn’t know about the rumbling fear deep down. “You could take me wherever you’re going. You need somebody to cook and wash for you.”
He pushed his plate back with a hand none too steady. He hadn’t touched his bacon and eggs, “We can pick up a couple girls along the way to do that and other things, too. A combination package. They won’t know who we are and won’t care as long as we buy them a fur or a piece of rock.”
He rose as if to end the talk and, going to the sink, washed his hands. “You’re playing for time. You figure you may get a break. Well, forget it. You only get a break in this world when you make one, and you’re not going to get the chance.”
She retorted, “You do it, and you can hide out somewhere for a month, maybe two months, but not for too long, and you know it, just as you know you’ll go to the gas chamber for it. Wouldn’t it be smarter to turn me loose and let me talk? You could get to Mexico before the police got started, or board a plane for the Orient. If you tied me up, you’d get a head start of a few days before anybody came in here and found me.”
He took a long time drying his hands. “I don’t go for Mex girls, or Jap ones. I want my women American. Like you, sweetheart. You’re getting to look awful good to us. Sammy was saying we had to put you away before he did something he shouldn’t.”
She stared at her plate. Her voice stayed only above a whisper. “I don’t understand how you could take a human life. Sammy perhaps, but not you.”
His eyes drifted away, staring into some distant corner of the past. She had stirred some random feeling that had long lain dormant. “Not you,” she repeated.
He put a match to a cigarette. “I think Sammy pegged you right. A con woman.” He took a quick, nervous puff.
Sammy appeared then in the doorway. “Is eleven o’clock tonight okay, Jenkins? We could make it for midnight, couldn’t we, Dan, if that’s a better time for Jenkins.”
20
Patti was modeling an abbreviated play suit in the store’s garden section when she spotted Greg making his way toward her. Hurriedly, she pirouetted before a bulging middle aged woman who would have had no business in a play suit even in the privacy of her own home.
Greg stepped up. “Please, I’ve got to talk with you.”
She walked on, and he followed. “Even a criminal gets a defense.”
She stopped very still by a patio table and an umbrella, fearful he would create a scene. He talked as if she were a leprechaun who might vanish. “About last night. So much happened.”
“I don’t care to hear about last night,” she said.
“I didn’t take a shot at D.C. There was this guy sneaking around, and I fired over his head. I only wanted to scare him. I didn’t know your cat was anywhere about until I fired the shot and saw him flying through the air.”
“You’re making it up, Greg. You said you were going to give him a pants full of shot “
“For heaven’s sake, Patti, are you going to throw that in my face forevermore? I was mad when I said it. You know how I get. I wouldn’t even step on his tail because you love him and I love you.”
“You what?”
“That’s what I said.”
She considered the matter. That same old charm. He only had to smile, and that did it. That wiped out all of his transgressions. “Why didn’t you tell me last night you were firing at this mysterious prowler?”
“Because when I turned on my patio light, there was my begonia dug up by the roots, and something snapped in me.”
“Something always snaps in you.”
“And afterwards, well, D.C. clawed my arm half to shreds I had to see a doctor today and get it bandaged. Anyway, can we forget it? Can we start all over again?”