Her face remained a stony mask.
“Yes, I like it,” she said finally, “but suppose after you have had your payoff, you drop out of sight?”
“There’s that,” I said, giving her my boyish smile. “I guess you’ll have to trust me.”
She shook her head.
“I have a better idea. Take four of those cheques and give me the rest. I’ll stay here a week to give you time to get your share, then I’ll start cashing my cheques. Anything wrong in that?”
I once again began to dream of owning a million dollars, and when I begin to dream about money, I lose concentration.
“Fine with me,” I said, and did a fatal thing. I was sitting well away from her, so I put my gun on the arm of my chair and began to count out four cheques. While doing this, I took my eyes off her: another fatal mistake. Then as she moved, I dropped the chequebook and grabbed for my gun, but I was much too late.
She had a gun in her hand and was shooting before my fingers touched my gun. She must have had the gun hidden down the side of the settee.
I felt a thud against my chest, then saw the gun flash, then heard the bang, and that’s all I did see and hear.
My million dollar world exploded into darkness.
I wasn’t allowed to see any visitors for a week. I lay in a hospital bed, feeling sorry for myself and being attended to by a middle-aged nurse who was as sexy as a dead starfish. From time to time, the surgeon would come in and congratulate himself on saving my life. He had a laugh like a hyena: he looked like a hyena.
While I lay in bed, I did some thinking. It looked as if I was back on square 1, and once I was up and about again, I would have to begin my dreary life, working for the Agency. I asked the nurse what had happened. She said she didn’t know: just looking at her, I wasn’t surprised. She was the type who worked in her small circle and let the world go by. So I just lay there and wondered until my first visitor arrived: Lu Coldwell.
As he drew up a chair and sat down, he said, “You had a lucky escape, Bart. What happened?”
“I gave her her suitcase,” I said. “Then as I was leaving, she pulled a gun and shot me.”
“What the hell did she do that for?”
“You ask her. Don’t ask me.”
“The shot was heard. The hotel dick went up to investigate, and she shot him. Then she took the elevator down to the lobby and walked out, carrying the suitcase and the gun in her hand. You can imagine the commotion! A patrol car was passing, spotted her, carrying a gun, pulled up and she started shooting. They cut her down. She was dead on arrival.”
“She must have gone berserk,” I said.
“She was Lucia Pofferi. Nancy Hamel died at the ranch house.”
So it is over, I thought. No million, back to the treadmill.
“The way I figure it is this...” Coldwell said, and went on to tell me what I could have told him. I didn’t bother to listen.
When he was through, the nurse came in and said I should rest. Coldwell said he hoped I’d be around again soon and took himself off.
No one came near me for the next week. I led a lonely life. I hoped Bertha might at least send flowers: nothing from her. She was now probably married to her Fink and cruising somewhere in his yacht.
I was sitting up in a chair by the time I had my second visitor. It was Chick Barley. He came in, carrying a bottle of Cutty Sark.
“Hi, Bart! How are they hanging?”
I dredged up a brave smile and accepted the bottle.
“I’m making progress,” I said. “Good of you to come. No one else has bothered.”
“Yeah.” He began to wander around the room, and I could see he had something on his mind.
“Any news of Bertha?” I asked, hopefully.
“She got married. She’s gone off to Europe for the honeymoon. The guy she married is loaded with the green.”
I felt even more depressed. I watched Chick move around the room, hands in his pockets, a frown on his face. I felt sure he was full of bad news.
“What’s biting you, Chick?” I said. “Something on your mind?”
“Robertson’s Law Index,” he said, pausing in his prowling. “You have a copy... right?”
I gaped at him.
“Yeah. God knows why I bought it. I’ve never looked.”
“The Colonel left his copy at home, and started yelling for one. I remembered you had a copy, so I dug it out of your Scotch drawer and gave it to him.”
“Okay, so you gave it to him. So what?”
Then my heart gave a bound and I felt cold. I remembered I had put a copy of my blackmailing statement about Pofferi, the pirates’ island and the Alameda which I had hoped would screw a hundred thousand dollars out of Nancy Hamel in that book. The statement hadn’t been in an envelope! The Colonel would have read it! The Colonel was nobody’s fool. He would know I had been on the scene at the beginning, and why.
I saw Chick was regarding me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “How was I to know? Glenda told me to tell you. Jesus, Bart! How could you have done such a goddamn thing?”
“Yeah.” Cold sweat was running down my back, “I am a dope. It looked good, Chick.”
He grimaced.
“Blackmail never looks good. Now, listen, the Colonel isn’t taking police action. He told Glenda if he did, the stink would smear the Agency’s image.”
I began to brighten.
“The Colonel’s smart.”
“Yeah, he’s smart, but Bart, he’s cancelled your licence, and he has put out the word. No one’s going to touch you. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.” He stuck out his hand. “So long, Bart, and the best of luck.”
When he had gone, I sat staring out of the window, down at the busy Paradise Avenue. I felt scared. Without a licence, I would now be way out on the unemployment limb.
Man! Was I depressed!
Later, the surgeon came in, grinning like a hyena. He said I could go home in a couple of days. I would have to take it easy, but in a month, I would be as good as new.
That I knew I wouldn’t be. Left alone, my mind was like a frightened squirrel in a cage. I had about two thousand dollars between me and the bread line. I had the hospital charges to meet. I would have to hunt for a job.
I stewed for two days and two nights, scarcely sleeping. I found no solution as to how I could earn the money I needed to live up to my standards.
Chick, my loyal pal, had sent over a suitcase of my clothes from my apartment, and he had parked the Maser outside the hospital. He also enclosed an envelope containing a fifty dollar bill with a note: For the last time. I’ll miss financing you, old pal.
I drove back to my apartment, feeling lower than a snake’s belly. I opened the front door, then paused. The big living room looked like a florist’s shop: flowers everywhere. There was a small banner stretched across the over-mantel that read: WELCOME BACK HOME, YOU HEEL.
I crossed the room and threw open my bedroom door. There was Bertha, naked as the back of my hand, lying seductively on my bed.
“You were shot, huh?” she said.
Was I glad to see her!
“I was shot.” I closed the door.
“Where?”
I grinned at her.
“Not where you think,” and I began to toss off my clothes.
Twenty minutes later, we lay side by side. Bertha kept running her fingers through my hair, making soft moaning noises. If that was her after-play, I went along with it, but already my mind was nibbling at my future.
“Bart, darling,” she said. “I am now sure I can’t go along with Theo.”