“Can’t we go to your place?”
“No,” he said.
“Why not?”
“My landlady locked me out of it yesterday.”
“For God’s sake, hurry!” she shouted.
“The unexpected!” he said, and he tugged her hand and reversed direction and ran back toward Henry and George who were racing up toward the comer. There were a lot of people on the comer of Sixth Avenue and Forty-second Street, but not many of them paid too much attention to Mullaney and the girl, or even to Henry and George, who stopped dead in their tracks and then whirled about when they realized their quarry was heading in the opposite direction. Neither of the twins was exactly slim or svelte, and they were puffing hard and desperately out of breath as they once more took up the chase. Mullaney had another brilliant idea, which he planned to spring if things got too tight, and that was to run up Fifth Avenue again to the Doubleday’s on Fifty-seventh Street, where he would lock the twins into one of the listening booths with a Barbra Streisand LP in stereo. But that was his ace in the hole, and he planned to play it only if the Public Library had already closed, which he hoped against hope it hadn’t. He reasoned (correctly, he hoped) that the twins would never expect them to run into the Public Library, because who in his right mind would go into the Public Library on a Friday night?
“You’re crazy,” the girl said. “I love you you’re so crazy.”
He took a last look over his shoulder before running across the street, dodging traffic and coming once again onto Fifth Avenue. Pulling the girl along with him, he raced up the wide marble front steps of the library, past the MGM lions, and then ducked onto the footpath leading to the side entrance, and through the revolving doors and into the high hallowed marbled corridors, wishing he had a nickel for every encyclopedia he had sold to libraries all over the country (in fact he had once had even more than a nickel for every encyclopedia he’d sold). He caught from the corner of his eye a sign telling him the library closed at ten, and then saw the huge wall clock telling him it was now nine thirty-seven, which meant he had exactly twenty-three minutes to put his hands on the money, perhaps less if George and Henry found them first. He was fairly familiar with libraries, though not this one, and he knew that all libraries had what they called stacks, which was where they piled up all the books. This being one of the largest libraries in the world, he assumed it would have stacks all over the place, so he kept opening oak-paneled doors all along the corridor, looking into rooms containing learned old men reading books about birds, and finally coming upon a door that was marked STAFF ONLY, figuring this door would surely open upon the privacy of dusty stacks, convinced that it would, and surprised when instead it opened on a cluttered office with a pince-nezed old lady sitting behind a desk, “Excuse us,” he said, “were looking for the stacks.”
The stacks, he thought, would be symbolically correct for unleashing those stacks of bills, which he had been very close to all along, but which he was now very much closer to, actually within touching distance of, actually within finger-tingling stroking distance of, five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of unmitigated loot. The girl’s hand was sweating in his own as they went rapidly down the marble corridor, as if she too sensed that he was about to unlock that avalanche of cash, turn her backside green with it as he had promised, allow her to wallow in all that filthy lucre. He spotted another door marked personnel and tried it, but it was locked, so he kept running down the corridor with the girl’s sweaty hand in his own, the smell of money enveloping both of them, trying doors, waiting for the door that would open to their touch, open upon rows and rows of dusty books in soaring stacks behind which they would allow the bills to trickle through their fingers, floating noiselessly on the silent air, if only Henry and George did not get to them first.
And then, unexpectedly (the only way he was beginning to expect), one of the doors opened on more books than he had ever seen in his life, stacked from floor to ceiling in metal racks stretching as far as the eye could see. He closed the door behind them, and then locked it. Taking her hand, he led her between the columns of books, wondering if any of them were the very encyclopedias he used to sell before he took the gamble, the gamble which was now to pay off in half a million lovely dollar bills.
“Oh my,” the girl said, “but it’s spooky in here.”
“Shhh,” he said, and clung tightly to her sweating hand. In the distance, he could hear footsteps, a library page running to get another book on birds for one of the learned old gentlemen reading in one of the wood-paneled rooms. He led her away from the footsteps, led her deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of books, doubting he would ever be able to find his way out again, but not caring because the money smell hung heavy on the air now, mingling with the musty aroma of old books. The patter of feet disappeared in the distance. There was suddenly a cul-de-sac as private as a woodland copse, books stacked on every side of them, surrounding them, a dim red light burning somewhere over a distant exit door, their escape when they needed it.
“Are you going to lay me now?” the girl asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“First the money,” she said.
It galled him that she said those words because they were only the ancient words whispered in cribs from Panama to Mozambique, and he did not expect them from this girl who had said she would do it on roller coasters.
“I have the money,” he said.
“Where?”
“I have it,” he insisted.
“Yes indeed, baby, but where?”
“Right here,” he said, and kissed her.
He thought, as he kissed her, that if she still insisted on the money first, he would probably produce it because that’s what money was for, to buy the things you wanted and needed. He thought, however, as he kissed her, that it would be so much nicer if she did not insist on the money, but instead offered herself to him in all her medieval, black-velveted, delicate charm, offered herself freely and willingly and without any promises, gave to him, simply gave to him without any hope of receiving anything in return; that, he thought, would be very nice. He almost lost himself in that single kiss, almost produced the money the instant his lips touched hers because the money no longer seemed important then, the only important thing was the sweetness of her mouth. The girl too, he thought, was enjoying the kiss as much as he, straining against him now with a wildness he had not anticipated, her arms encircling, the fingers of one hand widespread at the back of his neck the way he had seen stars doing it in movies but had never had done to him even by Irene who was really very passionate though sometimes shy, her belly moving in against him, her breasts moving in against him, her thighs, her crotch, everything suddenly moving in freely and willingly against him, just the way he wanted it, “The money,” she whispered.
He pressed her tight against the wall and rode the black skirt up over her thighs. She spread her legs as he drove in against her, and then arched her back and twisted away, trying to elude his thrust, rising onto her toes in retreat, dodging, and giggling as her evasive action seemed to work, and then gasping as she accidentally subsided upon the crest of another assault. “The money,” she said insistently, “the money,” and tried to twist away as he moved in against her again, rising on her toes again, almost losing a shoe, only to be caught once more by a fierce and sudden ascent, her own sharp twisting descent breaking unexpectedly against him. “The money,” she moaned, “the money,” and seized his moving hips as though to push him away from her, and then found her hands moving with his hips, accepting his rhythm, assisting him, and finally pulling him against her eagerly. Limply, clinging to the wall, one arm loose around his neck, the other dangling at her side, she sank to the jacket he had spread on the floor and said again by tireless rote, softly, “The money, the money.” She was naked beneath her skirt now, its black velvet folds crushed against her belly. His hands touched, stroked, pretended, possessed. She stretched her legs as though still in retreat, protesting, trying to sidestep though no longer on her feet. Weaponless, in angry reprimand, she snapped her groin up sharply against his demanding hand, a short petulant whiplash, and then sighingly moved against him in open surrender, shaking her head, breathing the words once in broken defiance, “The money.” Lifting herself to him, she tilted groin and buttocks up, opened skirt and legs, funneled him toward her and onto her and into her, “Turn you green,” he whispered, “Yes yes turn me,” she said, “Spread you like honey,” he whispered, “Oh yes spread me,” she said, and he rushed deep inside her with a sureness he had dreamt long ago, and remembering she murmured, “Oh you louse you promised.”