“Yes,” Helen said. Sudden panic hit her. “No, wait—” But she was speaking into a dead phone.
For several long moments she stood unmoving. Then she reached out reflexively to break the connection and dial Sam. He answered almost immediately.
“I have to see you,” she said. “Now.”
Sam turned the motel brochure over carefully and studied the back.
“It came in the mail this morning,” Helen said. It was later that same day and they were in his apartment. It was the first time Helen had been there in the daytime and the view from the windows was grey and dingy. “The man who sent it says he has photographs of us — together.” She stumbled slightly over the word. “He says he’ll send them to Frank unless I pay him five thousand dollars.”
Sam continued to study the brochure. “Do you have the money?” he said.
“In savings. But, my God, Sam, a withdrawal that size would wipe out the account! Frank would find out sooner or later, and I could never explain.” She looked at him pleadingly. “It might be better to face it now. At least it would be honest.”
“No,” Sam said sharply. “We can’t do that.” He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I never brought this up,” he said, “because it had nothing to do with us. But I’m married too. Neither of us has worked at the marriage for a long time now. There’s never been a divorce, though, mainly because any fault that could be proved would all be on her side. But this kind of a scandal — with me involved — would be all she needed to go into court and take me for everything I have.”
“What am I supposed to do,” Helen said bitterly, “feel sorry for you?”
“No,” Sam said. “The point is we’re in this together. And we’ll get out of it together.”
“How? By paying him what he wants?”
“Exactly,” Sam said. He shrugged. “I can scrape up a couple of thousand, but you’ll have to put up the rest. There’s no way around it.”
“And when he asks for more?”
“That’s what we’ve got to prevent,” Sam said. “But we need time and we need something to go on. The way it is right now, the cards are all stacked in his favor. He knows us, but all we have is a voice on the telephone that could belong to anyone. But he has to expose himself when he picks up the money. Where did he tell you to make the delivery?”
“By a telephone booth near Kennilworth and Ames at midnight tonight.”
Sam nodded. “Good,” he said. “I know the area. It’s not far from here. Small businesses mainly, so at that time of night it’ll be deserted. There are plenty of doorways and alleyways around for me to hide in and get a look at him when he makes the pickup. At the very least I’ll get the license number from his car and that will be a good start toward tracking him down.”
“And when you do,” Helen said, “what will you do then?”
Sam looked at her curiously, then grinned. “Nothing desperate, I assure you,” he said. “I’m no killer. But I don’t have to be. Once we know who he is, it becomes a Mexican stand-off. If he exposes us, we expose him. And blackmail’s a felony in every jurisdiction I know.” He rose and went over to her. “It’s going to be all right,” he said. “Believe me.” He put his arms around her, and after a moment the tension left her shoulders and he pulled her close against him.
Shortly after, Helen drove home to pick up her bankbook so she could make the withdrawal before the bank closed for the day. Almost as an afterthought, she picked up the pistol that Frank had bought her years before for protection while he was away. It was a .22 automatic, very compact. It fit easily into her purse.
Sam approached the telephone booth warily, stopping just outside the small area of semi-brightness. It was 11:30 and as he had predicted the intersection was deserted. He continued to stand where he was for several moments, then, finally satisfied there was no one to observe him, he cut across the street into a dark doorway with an unimpeded view of the booth. He lit a cigarette, cupping his hands around the match to hide the flame, and settled down to wait.
The sound of tires on pavement brought him alert, and he glanced automatically down at his watch. He could just make out the luminous dial. Five minutes to twelve. Was it Helen coming early — or someone else? Not sure, but alert for either possibility, he ground out the cigarette and crouched farther back into the shadows.
Moments later Helen’s car pulled to a stop beside the booth and she got out. She stood for several seconds looking nervously up and down the street, then stooped to deposit her package. Sam was suddenly aware of his heart pounding wildly in his chest. The flow of adrenalin made his hands tremble, but he held himself back until Helen had driven off and he could no longer hear the car. Then, as if released from a spring, he dashed out across the street, snatched up the package, and ran back to the shelter of a different, closer doorway.
Twenty-six hundred dollars. He knew the exact amount because they’d counted it together earlier in his apartment after Helen had brought it back from the bank. He breathed heavily. It wasn’t as good as five thousand, of course, but it was better than nothing. Much better than nothing.
Gradually he brought himself back under control and when his hands were steadier he opened the package and broke the money down into packets that would fit unobtrusively into his pockets. Finished, he crumpled the wrapping to throw it away, then on second thought carried it with him to deposit carefully in a trash bin several blocks away.
He was glad it was over. He hadn’t really liked doing this to Helen — just as he hadn’t liked doing it to Ceil or Mary or any of the others. But the affair was bound to end sooner or later anyway, and expenses on the building were running higher than he’d expected. And they had all practically asked for it anyway.
By the time he reached his car he was whistling.
Helen was waiting for him at his apartment, sitting on the sofa, a jumble of cigarette stubs in the ashtray before her.
Sam shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought I had it all psyched out. But whoever he is, he’s a lot smarter than we gave him credit for. He must have figured we’d try to make him, because he was wearing a ski mask. A goddamn ski mask this time of year!”
“You got the license number though?”
Sam shook his head again. “It was smeared with mud. Completely unreadable. Next time though—”
Helen’s eyes came up to meet his steadily. “There isn’t going to be a next time, Sam.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there shouldn’t even have been a first time. But I wanted to give you every chance to prove I was wrong.”
“Wait a minute,” Sam said.
“No,” she said. “You made one mistake this afternoon, Sam. You said all we had was a voice on the telephone that could belong to anybody. But I hadn’t said anything about a phone call. So how did you know that’s what it had been, and not a note or a letter?”
Sam wet his lips. “Hey, come on,” he said. “You can’t hang a guy for jumping to a conclusion.”
“No, but I can wonder. So I didn’t just drive off tonight after leaving the money. I cut over onto a side street and parked where I could watch. I saw the whole thing.”
Sam shook his head. “No,” he said, “you were gone. I made—”
He broke off as Helen continued to look up at him.
“That was your second mistake, Sam,” she said. She took the gun from her purse. “I want my money back,” she said.