Part 21 (1/2)

I'd forgotten that. I'd meant to after that shower, but it had slipped my mind. That was what pressure could do. ”Well, the h.e.l.l with it. We haven't got time.”

Then I put a hand up to my face, remembering. I not only hadn't shaved. I hadn't shaved for three days.

I cursed. But there was no use just asking people to stare at me. I ran into the bathroom, yanking off the s.h.i.+rt and tie. While I lathered and sc.r.a.ped I heard her rustling around in the bedroom.

I came out. She was waiting.

”I'll need something to put the money in,” she said. ”There's a lot of it. Physically, I mean.”

”We'll stop somewhere and buy a briefcase,” I said impatiently. ”No, wait. How about that overnight bag of yours?”

”Certainly. I hadn't thought of that. It'll do nicely, and I'm not taking the old clothes anyway.” She went into the bedroom and came out carrying the bag.

I put on the coat, which had been hanging on the back of a chair.

We were ready.

”All right,” I said. ”Let's go.”

When we stepped out onto the street I could feel the skin along my back draw up hard and tight with chill. But by the time we had casually walked the block to the car and got in, it wasn't so bad. I took the sungla.s.ses out of the glove compartment and put them on.

I drove slowly. Traffic was heavy. It was a hot, still day, and I could feel myself sweating beneath the coat.

I watched the traffic lights. I watched the other cars. If we had an accident now. . .

But we didn't. Nothing happened. Once a squad car pulled up alongside us in the other lane and I could feel my nerves knot up, but the two cops paid no attention to us. They went on past and turned the corner.

We were downtown now, in the thick of traffic. I couldn't turn left into Avalon, where the Seaboard Bank and Trust and the Third National were, so I had to go around the block.

The first time through there wasn't a parking place anywhere in the two blocks between the banks. Next time our luck was better. I found one just a half block beyond the Seaboard. There was a half hour on the meter.

I took out the first two keys and handed them to her. ”I'll wait right here while you make both of them. After you come out of the Seaboard, walk on down to the Third National. When you're finished there, walk back this way and stand diagonally across on the corner up there. I'll see you. I can turn left there, so I'll pick you up and we'll be headed for the Merchants Trust.”

She smiled, crinkling up her eyes. ”Watch Susie's walk,” she said. She was as cool as a mint bed.

She got out, carrying the little suitcase.

I watched her. I saw her cross the street behind me. She went up the steps into the bank.

I waited.

My nerves crawled. It was almost physically impossible to sit still. I lit cigarettes. I threw them out after two puffs. I pretended to be looking for something in the glove compartment, to keep my face down. Another patrol car went slowly past in the traffic. It was a black shark, cruising, deadly, not quite noticing, easing past, gone. I unclenched my hands.

It was hot. I became aware that I was counting. I didn't know what I was counting; I was just saying numbers. I tried to follow her in my mind. Where was she now? She had to go through the bank to the rear, down the steps, through the ma.s.sive doorway. She signed the card, she gave her key to an attendant in the s.h.i.+ny corridors between walls of steel honeycomb. Now she was going into one of the booths, closing the door, sliding the lid off the box, transferring the money to the overnight bag, coming out. . .

Up the steps, through the bank, out the doorway, down the steps outside. . .

I stared into the rear-view mirror.

There she was.

She came out. She flowed down the steps with the s.e.xy indolence of Susie and sauntered across the street behind me. She came up the sidewalk, and as she pa.s.sed the car she turned her face and smiled. One eye closed ever so slightly in a wink.

One away.

I waited again. I was watching the parking meter now. It was getting close. I wished I had asked her to put a nickel in it. If the flag dropped I had to get out and do it. I didn't want to get out. I felt in my pocket.

I didn't have a nickel.

I watched the meter. Sweat ran slowly down my face.

It had three minutes left on it when I saw her cross the street ahead of me and stand on the corner, waiting.

I picked her up. My s.h.i.+rt was wet. My hands trembled. I couldn't wait for her to get the door closed. ”Did you get it?” I demanded. ”Was it all right? Did you have any trouble?”

She laughed softly. ”Not a bit. Take it slowly, so you'll miss that next light. I want to show you something.”

The light caught us. I stopped. ”Open it,” I whispered. I felt as if I were being strangled. ”Open it!”

She had the overnight bag in her lap. She unsnapped the two latches, smiling at me out of the corners of her eyes. ”Look.”

She raised the lid just a couple of inches. I looked in. I forgot everything else. It was worth it. It was worth everything I had gone through. It was beautiful. I saw twenties, fifties, hundreds, in bundles. In fat bundles girdled with paper bands.

I wanted to plunge my hands into it.

”Watch,” she whispered. She slid a white-gloved hand in under the lid and broke one of the bands and stirred the loosened bundle with a caressing slowness that was almost s.e.xual. I watched, gripping the wheel until my fingers hurt.

She snapped the lid shut. I took the other key out of my wallet and gave it to her. We were still waiting for the light. When she had put the key in her purse I reached over and took her hand. I squeezed it. She squeezed back.

”Look,” I whispered, ”after we've finished this last one, let's go back to the apartment. Just for a few minutes, before we start. Susie wouldn't mind, would she?”

She gave me a sidelong glance and said, ”I don't think she would. Not for just a few minutes.”

She had slid the bag back a little in her lap and she was straightening the seams of her stockings, doing it deliberately and very slowly, one long lovely leg at a time. She turned her face just slightly so her eyes were smiling obliquely up at me from under the curving lashes.

”After all,” she said softly, ”it was Venus, wasn't it, who breathed life into Galatea?”

It was wonderful. Oh, Lord, it was wonderful.

I could hardly hear her now. The whisper was tremulous, catching in her throat. ”This is shameless, isn't it? In brilliant sunlight, in the middle of town. I- I think Susie is going to be a revelation to both of us. Oh, won't that light ever change?”

If she didn't shut up and stop it I'd go crazy right there in the street. I had to look away from her.

It was terrific. If you lived twenty consecutive life times you'd never run across anything quite like it. I almost missed the light, just thinking of the beauty of it.

She had outguessed them all, and she thought she had outguessed me. And now we were going back to the apartment, we were going to launch the tremulous and smoldering Susie, and I was going to walk out when it was done with $120,000 I'd never have to divide with anybody. And not only that. The thing that made it an absolute masterpiece was the fact that now I wouldn't even have any battle to get those clothes so I could throw them down the garbage chute. She'd help me. She'd help me all the way.