“S down the ol’ hatch,” I said, weaving a little, and gulped part of mine. The shoes were lying on the carpet near the corner of the bed. “Howz bout a kiss?” I said, and stepped toward her. I landed on them, and heard one of the heels snap. So did she.
“Now look what you’ve done, you stupid idiot!” she lashed out. “Of all the clumsy, big-mouthed apes!”
I weaved, fixed her with a glassy stare, and contemptuously kicked the shoes under the bed. Hauling out the wallet, I fumbled a fifty out of it and threw it on the bed. “Go buy self ‘nother pair. But don’ heave your weight ‘round. I could buy you for cat food.”
I tried to stuff the wallet back into my pocket. It fell to the floor. I reached down for it, and fell over. She stared at me with contempt. I got up, tossed the wallet on the dresser, and went into the bathroom. Turning on the water in the basin, I made a retching sound, and washed my face. When I came out, she was smiling.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “It was my fault, for leavin’ ’em there. Here, let me pour you another little drink.”
“Sgood idea,” I replied. “Pologize. Din mean word of it.” I drank part of the whisky, dropped the glass on the rug, and collapsed on the bed. “Lie down few mince. Feel better.”
She stretched out beside me, and stroked my face with her hand. “There, there, honey. Ju-u-st relax. You just had a little too much.”
I closed my eyes. We lay perfectly still for about ten minutes, and then she said, “Honey?”
“Ummmff?” I muttered, and stirred a little.
She waited another twenty minutes before she tried again. I went on breathing heavily, and made no reply. After a few more minutes she moved cautiously away from me, and got up. I heard the rustle of the dress as she put it back on, and the careful unsnapping of the bag to get the other pair of shoes. I had to listen carefully to hear the door open, but there was a faint click as it closed.
I slid off the bed, parted the curtains at the front window just a fraction of an inch, and peered out. There was no one in sight except her. All the units across the way were dark, and the woman who ran the place had long since gone to bed. She reached the entrance, turned left, toward the center of town, and disappeared.
She should know enough not to take a cab all the way to Miami and at this time in the morning, so she’d probably head for the bus station. She knew I had her address, and the chances were she wouldn’t stop this side of California. With a married man she could tough it out and play the percentages, but she should be pretty sure by now that I was single. I’d cried enough about what the tax people did to me because of it.
I went over to the dresser. She’d left the wallet. Removing the identification had been superfluous, but it was a precaution I had to take. Chapman was going to be all over the front pages in a few hours, and having his identification turn up somewhere in a garbage can would have been disastrous.
Twelve
I replaced all the identification and the cards in the wallet, and looked at my watch. It was one forty-five. Taking two water tumblers out in the bathroom, I rinsed them and rubbed them with a towel to remove prints. It didn’t really matter—the maid would replace them with two fresh ones, wrapped in waxed paper as these had been. I set to work on the three bags, one of which was open on the luggage stand. They were fiberglass, and would probably show prints. I wiped them all over very carefully with the towel to remove any already there, and then replaced them with numbers of deliberately smeared prints—touching them, particularly around the hardware and handles, with my fingers and hands, but always sliding just a little. I did the same thing with all the doorknobs, bathroom fixtures, and the glass top of the dresser. The bottle of whisky I’d take with me, and the one that had been in his luggage originally I’d already thrown away.
I pulled out the nylons and the pair of pants I’d shoved under the mattress, held them under the tap in the wash basin until they were thoroughly wet, squeezed out the excess water, and draped them on a coat hanger from the closet. I hung them from the shower head that projected from the wall above the tub, and then slid the shower curtain about halfway out on its rod so they were hidden from view.
I retrieved the shoes from under the bed. The broken heel was still attached, but dangling. Turning out the lights, I lay down on the bed with a cigarette. It was difficult to stay awake. I’d really had more to drink than I was accustomed to. After about an hour, I got up without turning on the lights, slipped out the side door into the carport, and unlocked the trunk of the Cadillac. Going back inside, I returned with the whisky bottle and the shoes. Stumbling, I fell heavily against the side of the car, bumped once against the wall of the carport, and dropped to the floor. I remained utterly silent for at least five minutes, and then got up with a great scraping of shoes against concrete, bumped against the car once more, put the shoes and bottle in the trunk, lowered the lid very gently, and pressed until the latch clicked. I tiptoed back inside, closed the door, and lay down again.
It was nine when I awoke. My clothes were badly rumpled. I had a slight hangover, but it wasn’t bad. I washed my face, but didn’t shave, and when I appraised myself in the mirror I looked like a man on the wrong end of a two-day binge. Shoving the empty wallet in my pocket, I put on the hat and glasses and took one last look around. Everything was all right. Except for the pants and the nylons drying in the bathroom, there was nothing to indicate a woman had ever been here.
I went out, being careful not to leave any prints on the knob as I closed the door, got in the car, and drove out. The woman who ran the place was in the doorway of the office; she smiled, and I solemnly tipped my hat. It was a few minutes past ten when I reached downtown Miami and finally found a parking place. The briefcase the tapes had been in was on the back seat. I got out with it and walked to the bank.
I wrote out the check for a hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and presented it at a window. The teller was a girl. She did a take, raised her eyebrows, looked at me again, and disappeared. I gathered it wasn’t every day she cashed checks in that amount for grimy and disheveled characters who’d obviously slept in their clothes and hadn’t shaved for a couple of days. Well, I’d expected a certain amount of consternation. I stuck a cigarette in the holder and lit it.
Dakin came out. As I’d suspected before, he never remembered what anybody looked like. He glanced uncertainly around at the people at other windows, and when the girl nodded towards me, he said, “Ah, yes. Mr. Chapman.” We shook hands.
“Do you really want this in cash?” he asked incredulously.
I stopped humming The Music Goes Round and Round, glanced at him as if I thought the question tiresome, and said, simply, “Yes.”
I knew then they’d already checked the signature against the card and knew it was genuine. They suspected a con game of some kind, or that I was in some kind of trouble at home and had worked out this deal for disappearing with a lot of ready cash, but in the end there was nothing they could do about it. I’d put the money in the bank, so who had a better right to take it out? He did ask, since it was made out to cash and the girl hadn’t actually seen me sign it, if I’d mind making out another?
“Not at all,” I said. I made out another, signed it, and said, “But I’m in rather a hurry, if you don’t mind.”
He looked at the signature, and shrugged. There was a slight service charge for transferring the funds. They brought the money, packed it into the briefcase for me, I paid the service charge, tipped my hat politely to the girl, and walked out with the briefcase under my arm.