So we left the excuse for a restaurant and returned to the excuse for a cabin, and we went into the cabin and locked the door behind us, and I turned to look at Cindy and she looked back at me and it began.
“We made it,” she said. “We made it, Ted. We... did it, we finished it, we did the job. We’re all set now, Ted. We’re rich.”
She was shaking like a leaf. This wasn’t too hard to understand. All the pressures had piled up on her and she’d never fully cracked up. Now that we were safe, now that it was over, she was letting herself fall apart a little. I held her close and stroked her hair. It was unbelievably soft to the touch.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s okay, baby.”
“We did it. We did it, Ted.”
“Easy, baby. Just relax, everything’s all right, it’s all over. Just relax.”
She was shivering. “Suppose they find the bodies, Ted. Then what?”
“They won’t find them for weeks.”
“They might have found them already, Ted. You can never say for sure. Maybe somebody had to deliver a package to that house and decided something must be wrong.”
“Why would they do that?”
She gave a little shrug. “I don’t know,” she said. “But it could happen. Or some nosy neighbor could decide something was wrong and call the police. You never know what’s going to happen. I’ve read about cases that get solved that way. One slip of luck like that and the whole ballgame is over.”
“It won’t happen.”
“But what if it did?”
I held her closer and rubbed the back of her neck. Deep down inside she wasn’t as excited as she seemed. It was just the damned pressure.
“Listen,” I said, “let’s suppose the cops have already found the bodies. Personally, I think the odds against that are sky-high, but I’ll concede the possibility. As you said, it could happen.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Even so,” I went on, “we’re about as safe as a government bond. They can’t follow us. They don’t know a thing about us, not a damned thing. As far as they’re concerned, we’re nameless and faceless. They don’t know if there’s one of us or ten of us. Nobody’s looking for a man and a woman and nobody will.”
“How about the car?”
“It’s safe.”
“Maybe somebody spotted it.”
I shrugged. “It could happen,” I said, “but don’t stay up nights worrying about it. The car was clean when they drove up. It wasn’t there very long before we were in it and out of the city. If it’ll make you happy, we can get rid of it tomorrow.”
“I think we should, Ted. There’s no sense taking chances.”
That was all right with me.
“And the money, Ted. The... counterfeit. That’s another chance.”
“It’s no chance at all,” I told her. “The bills will pass banks, for God’s sake. And there’s no way to tie up the job in San Francisco with counterfeiting. We got rid of all the junk in the place. Face it, baby — we’re one hundred percent pure. Not even Ivory Soap can make that statement.”
“I know, but—”
“But what?”
“But I’m scared.”
She was scared — and she would go on being scared no matter how much talking I did. Her fear was emotional, not rational. It demanded an emotional solution rather than a profound logical argument.
Which was fine with me.
“Come here,” I said.
She came to me and looked frightened.
“Me Tarzan,” I said. “You Jane. That Bed.”
She looked at me, at herself, and at the bed. A slow smile spread on her face. She understood completely and she was all in favor of the idea. But she stood there looking young and scared and virginal and left me to take good care of her.
While she stood there like a statue, motionless and beautiful and frightened, I took her in my arms and kissed her. Then I undressed her, taking her clothes off slowly but surely, my hands deft and clever. As each article of clothing left her person and became part of a crumpled heap on the cabin floor, more of her beauty was uncovered. It was like seeing her for the first time. I’d made love to her before — how many times? — but it seemed now that I had never realized quite how lovely she was.
It was uncanny. I had seen her on the street, then followed her only to discover she lived in the building right across from mine. And that little odd coincidence had led us to hell and back, from New York to Phoenix to Frisco to a broken down cabin on the outskirts of Madison City, Nevada.
And now we were going to make love again.
She stood stock still in bra and panties. I reached behind her, got my fingers on the hook of the bra. I took it off and saw the radiant beauty of her breasts. I wondered again why she bothered to wear a bra. She didn’t need it.
Then the panties.
And then my goddess was nude. I took off my own clothes while she watched through sightless eyes. Then I picked her up in my arms without noticing her weight at all, and I carried her to the ramshackle bed, and I set her down on top of the sheet and stretched out beside her.
I kissed her. I kissed her mouth and her nose and her eyes. I stroked her cheek, her throat. I touched her breasts, felt the firmness of them, pinched the hard little nipples until they stiffened under my touch.
I ran a hand over her stomach. In time, when we were married, that stomach would swell up and blossom out with the weight of the child I would implant there. She would be pregnant with my son or daughter, and the two of us would have managed to create new life.
I touched all of her, her legs and thighs, her back, her shoulders. And throughout the process she remained entirely calm and completely motionless.
“I love you,” I said.
And then it began. I took her once more in my arms, held her tight against me, and passion took over from fear. At once she came alive, alive for me, and I knew that everything was going to be all right. Her breasts cushioned me and her body made a place for me, and then it began in earnest.
It was a new kind of lovemaking for us. It was born in desperation, but it grew and developed with something not desperate or hectic at all. We were in love and nothing was going to stand in our way. We had it made — we were rich and free and nobody was chasing us.
Our lovemaking mirrored this. It was contained and yet unrestrained, passionate but gentle, complete but somehow calm.
There was no rush now, no need to hurry. For the first time in our relationship we were not pressed for time. Instead we had all our lives ahead of us, all the time in the world. And so we didn’t rush. We took things easy, and we moved gently but firmly together, and I lay with the woman I loved and the world was now the best of all possible worlds.
She spoke my name and I spoke hers. She told me that she loved me and I told her it was mutual. But we did not talk very much because it was not very essential. Our bodies were telling each other everything that had to be said.
The bed strained under the weight of our love, its springs echoing the rhythms of passion. Outside, a wind was blowing up and it wouldn’t carry the cabin away. I think if a wind had blown the cabin free from us we would have gone on doing just what we were doing. We’d never have noticed the difference.
Her body locked tight around me and our mouths merged in a kiss. It was going to happen now — our love was snowballing to a climax and no force on earth could have stopped it. The world was about to end — not with a whimper but with a bang.
And, at the crest of passion, she broke. She came to fulfillment with a rush of tears and a heave of sobs, and I knew that her fear and nervousness were over now that the crisis had been reached and surpassed.
Everything was going to be all right.
We slept well for the first time in a long time.