“So?”
She turned a little and looked at me. Her face was in the shadow and I couldn’t see her expression, but her voice was flat and hard. “He came to see me after he left you. He told me about the girl that came up to your room. The one wearing the big shiny engagement ring. That’s what this is all about, Johnny.”
“What else did he say?”
That stopped her a little. She waited a second or so and I could hear her breathing unevenly. “That’s enough for a start, isn’t it?”
“Goddam,” I said. “Is that why you had to see me?”
“That isn’t all. He said you told him I had been intimate with Lesser.”
“What if I did?”
She drew away as if she’d been struck. “You did, then. Have you been reading the papers, Johnny? Do you know what I’m being called by every paper in town? Do you think it’s enjoyable being treated by the people in the building as if I had leprosy?”
Her voice was unsteady and she was almost crying.
I grabbed both her arms and pulled her close to me. “Listen, you silly little fool. What those people think and say about you doesn’t mean a damn thing. All we’ve got to worry about is getting away with this deal. Nothing else matters.”
“That’s all right for you,” she said. She struggled wildly against me for a minute but I gripped her arms hard and held her tight against me and then she began to cry and it came from deep inside her and went through me like a knife.
“You can say nothing matters,” she said hoarsely. “You’ve got that little blonde waitress to play around with, and nobody is treating you as if you were something filthy.”
I put my arms around her then and the fear I felt was the worst I’d ever know. While she was talking I knew we were doing the one thing that would tear everything apart. Once we started fighting and doubting each other we were through. We were stuck together by a murder and when you tear away from something like that it rips everything along with it.
The fear that made me feel sick was there because Harrigan was starting to tear us apart.
Maybe he didn’t know what he was doing, but if he ripped us open, he’d know everything. He was working now on the wrong end of the angle, figuring someone had tried to get rid of Lesser, but when that fell through he’d start wondering if someone wasn’t trying to get rid of Frank. And that might start him after us and unless we stuck together like glue he’d have us cold.
“Listen to me, baby,” I whispered. I was talking into her hair and my voice was low and muffled. I pulled her closer to me and ran my hands over her bare arms and after a while she stopped crying, except for a little sob every now and then, and finally she was quiet in my arms.
“Baby, baby,” I said. “The blonde is just a cover-up to keep anybody from getting any ideas that you and I might be hooked together. They won’t think a guy planning to get married has any other ideas. The ring was just part of the plan. About you playing house with Lesser, well that doesn’t mean anything. Harrigan asked me what I thought and I just made a normal crack. I couldn’t say you hadn’t because he might wonder how I knew. Every angle is touchy now, baby. After Frank goes up for his stretch, things will settle down and we can get away.”
While I talked to her I kept kissing her occasionally, soft little kisses that didn’t mean anything, but she quieted down in my arms, and by the time I finished she was curled up next to me and the meanness was gone from her face and her lips were curved in a sad little smile.
We sat there for a long time, watching the stars come out and feeling the cool fresh wind off the lake. Finally it got dark and colder but we stayed there, huddled close together and not talking at all.
We seemed a million miles from everybody in the world. It was peacefull and quiet and it was easy to believe right then there wasn’t going to be any more trouble. But that was just a dream. We both knew we’d have to leave pretty soon and drive back into our regular lives where there was worry waiting for us.
“Let’s go and lie on the beach, Johnny.”
“You’ll get sand in your shoes, baby.”
“I don’t care.”
A long while later we drove back to Chicago. I dropped her at Sheridan and Granville. She held my hand tight for a minute before walking quickly away.
I went on downtown. When I got to my room I saw three telephone messages under the door. They were all from the blonde. She had called at eight-thirty, at ten and at eleven.
There wasn’t anything to do about them now so I tore them up and went to bed.
Chapter XII
The phone woke me the next morning. It was the blonde.
She said, “This is Marie. I’m downstairs. Can I come up and see you?”
“Sure thing. But give me a couple of minutes to get dressed, honey.”
“All right.” She hung up and I climbed out of bed and dressed in a hurry. I hadn’t liked the way her voice sounded. She didn’t sound hurt or mad, which was what I expected. She sounded cool and sure of herself.
She knocked while I was putting on my coat. I opened the door and she came in with a funny little smile on her face.
“I’m sorry, honey, about last night,” I said. I took her by the shoulders and tried to kiss her but she twisted away from me and sat down in the big chair.
I noticed then she wasn’t dressed for work. She had on a black silk dress with sheer stockings and high-heeled shoes. They made her look more sure of herself and older.
“I waited up pretty late last night,” she said.
“I told you I was sorry,” I said. “A deal came up that I just had to handle.”
“That’s all right,” she said.
“Fine. How about a drink?”
She said no, so I made one for myself. I realized I’d been hitting the stuff pretty hard during the last week and I decided to have one stiff one and lay off for the rest of the day.
“You’re not mad then?” I said.
“I was, but I’m not any more.” She was looking at me steadily, with the same funny little smile on her face. “I quit my job this morning,” she said.
She said it like it meant something.
“I knew you wouldn’t want your wife working as a waitress,” she said.
There was only one thing to say. “Of course I don’t,” I said.
“I quit because I figured we’d be getting married pretty soon,” she said.
“As soon as we can,” I said. I drank a little from my glass.
“How soon do you think that will be?” she said.
“That’s hard to say. I’m tied up right now in a couple of deals that mean big money. I’ve got to get those set before we can do anything.”
“I’d like to get married right away,” she said, and she smiled at me like she hadn’t heard a word I’d said. “You know that’s all I ever really wanted. A place of my own, a husband, maybe some kids. I’m not a very smart girl. I didn’t even finish high school. I don’t read anything but the newspapers and all I read them for is the funnies and the society page. That’s funny, isn’t it? I mean about the society page. I like to look at those girls wearing nice clothes and walking around country clubs, but I wouldn’t want that. I wouldn’t know how to act in places like that. But I’ll know how to act in a place of my own. That’s what I want and I want it right away, Johnny.”
I was nervous and I didn’t know why.
“Well,” I said, “getting married right away is out. I just told you that.”
“I know you did, Johnny, but I’ve been thinking the last couple of days. I was’ thinking about how funny it was the way you started taking me around. Night after night to the best places in town, spending a lot of money and finally asking me to marry you and buying me a big expensive ring.”