He gave a quick cough of laughter. “You can do better than that. Take your time. We’ve got all night.”
“Apparently you do not believe me?”
“I don’t believe in Santa Claus, either. You’re mixed up in something, that much I’ll give you. Nobody carries eight hundred bucks in cash without a reason. And there was something off about that phone call. But a heist?” he said scornfully. “You? Stealing a truck? How dumb do you think I am?”
Turning, he put his hand against her bare stomach. She sucked in her breath and her breasts rose toward him. A tingling started in odd places, including the soles of her feet.
“I wouldn’t knock you off, baby,” he said. “Let’s stick together till your plane goes. Of course, I know you can always fly back, or call the cops long distance. But I’ll be out of sight by that time. It’s OK.”
He was smiling slightly, making no real effort to make it sound convincing. She tried to ignore the little tinglings he had started.
“Listen to me-”
“Where have you got the Chevy, downstairs?”
“Yes, where the cars are parked. Darling, you must listen to me for one minute.”
But he had tuned her out, as though by switching off the battery in his shirt pocket. He took the wallet out of his hip pocket and counted the money he had taken from Melnick, frowning. She could see that he didn’t consider it enough.
“Wait a bit longer,” she said. “Then there is a way I can convince you. I will take you to a place to meet the others. Can you lose anything by finding out? Naturally I do not make a habit of stealing trucks. It is new in my experience. But this is a special truck. It carries a valuable cargo. I made a plan, secured a backer, hired a person to recruit others. They will carry it out. I myself risk little. If it fails, I return to France no worse off than before.”
At last she had his attention. She continued: “During these two weeks, you understand, I am not in New York. I am visiting friends near Nice. Anyone who says I am in New York is a liar.”
“Who rented this apartment?”
“Someone with no idea at all that it is being used at present. I rented the car myself, using my passport. As I told you before you decided to listen, the passport is in the name of an imaginary person.”
He poured himself more whiskey, turning over what she had said. “So if anything goes wrong, you’ll be drinking rum punches on a beach in France someplace.”
“That is why I am willing to pay fifteen thousand dollars for thirty minutes’ work. But nothing will go wrong.”
He snorted. “With five people things are bound to go wrong. Look at what happened tonight. A simple little stickup, with automatic elevators and no doorman. So I had to get on a subway train with the one son of a bitch in New York who would recognize me. A traffic cop had to be tagging a car outside the front door for a parking violation. A couple of delivery jerks had to bring in a piano at half past five in the afternoon. A piano! That’s three things that couldn’t happen again in a hundred years, and they all happened inside of an hour.”
“Granted. But let us be very very careful and we can lengthen the odds. If you are interested, and I think to be realistic you have to be interested, I will go over the plan and let you suggest improvements.”
“What do you mean, to be realistic? I don’t need anybody. I never have.”
She put her hand on his. “All I want you to do is think about it.”
“What’s in the truck?” he said after a moment.
She could see that he was half-persuaded, but she could not risk stepping on some hidden prejudice. “That, I am afraid, is none of your business.”
His eyebrows came together. She decided it was time for a flare of temper of her own. “Truly! Put yourself in my situation. There are things I must reserve. A truck, X, will proceed along a certain street, Y. Why should it matter to you what is in it?”
He gave a grudging grunt. “What looks really fishy-two days before something like this you don’t start looking for an extra man.”
“How very true,” she said dryly. “Before I left France I was given the name of a person to approach. He was said to be excellent. I could tell him how many others I wanted, with what specialties, and he would find them for me. He did this. But he is a man with one fault-he becomes quarrelsome when drinking. Never mind, no one is perfect. And he is no longer one of us. He is in jail, awaiting trial for fighting in a bar. A person of no consequence was injured. We have been wondering-can we do it with four? The answer is yes, but with danger. The plan was for five. And now suddenly here you are, perfect for it! You have reasons to be careful, you will not become drunk in a bar. On top of all your other qualities”-she smiled-“you make love marvelously.”
He came close to returning the smile. “It wasn’t too bad. Where have you got these guys?”
“One is a girl. When everything becomes quiet I take you there.”
He took an ice cube in his mouth along with the bourbon and crunched it between his powerful jaws. “I don’t say I like it,” he said. “I’ve always been one man. Even that can get complicated, but bring in five people and everything’s multiplied. I’ll look it over. It could be an out. I don’t say it is. It could be. Just don’t try to maneuver me, that’s all.”
Reaching out suddenly, he took the back of her neck in a powerful grip. She went with the pressure, knowing that for the moment she had nothing to fear.
“Because what have I got to lose?” he said in a tone that was almost tender. He released her and continued, “If you want to back out of that story, do it now. This guy who got pulled in for brawling, so you’d have a spot open-that’s too damn convenient.”
“Convenient or not, it happened.”
“OK, it happened. Now what about Portugal? Why Portugal?”
“Because that is where the plane goes. Darling, one step at a time. Meet these people, let us tell you more about what we plan. Sometime tomorrow we will go over the actual ground. You will agree that it can work. If I have told you a single lie so far, one, you may put your revolver to my head and pull the trigger. We must wait here some hours. There is more whiskey. There is the television. Perhaps there is a program you wish to watch, unless you have a better idea of how to use the time.”
He gave her a penetrating look under lowered brows. “I hope this is on the level, kid. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.”
She shivered slightly, and the shiver set the tingling going again. She shouldn’t let him affect her this much. It was out of proportion. She was a cool, self-possessed girl who knew what was important and what was not important. She had plans for the future. He was a gunman, a killer. If she had to take him to Portugal, never mind, she would drop him in a hurry once she arrived. But why had nobody, out of all the people who had made love to her, ever made her react in just this way?
“Damn you, are you going to kiss me?” she said.
CHAPTER 4
From the basement corridor, they went up a short ramp to the delivery entrance. Even after several hours together, he still trusted her exactly as much as before, which was to say, not at all. The back door was unguarded. Keeping a firm grip on her arm, he took her to her parked convertible. There was no activity anywhere in the parking area. He wedged his big frame into the cramped space behind the front seat. He had his gun out, and he made sure that she saw him press the muzzle against the back of the driver’s seat. She nodded. To signal a policeman and try to jump from a moving automobile was hardly her type of thing, gun or no gun.
She covered him with a robe. After turning on the lights and starting the motor, she reported in a conversational tone, “No sign of anybody.”
She cramped her wheels and eased out of the parking slot. A police car was parked outside on Central Park West. She kept her eyes straight ahead as she passed, and then watched the mirror. The police car stayed where it was.