Evangeline Ashley was going to her lover. She was going to her lover, William Grant, known as Bill, who lived on the second floor of a semi-fashionable apartment house on a semi-fashionable street, its curbs lined with parked cars, in a semi-fashionable neighborhood.
She arrived there at twenty minutes after eleven, giving no heed to the parked cars one of which was a sleek black Cadillac with a thick dark man seated at its wheel. She ran up one flight of wooden stairs and knocked upon a door marked 2A.
“Who is it?” said Bill Grant.
“Eve,” said Evangeline Ashley.
“What the hell!” said Bill Grant and opened the door.
“Surprised?” said Evangeline Ashley.
“Knocked right on my fanny,” said Bill Grant. “Don’t you believe in calling?”
“It’s your night off, isn’t it?”
“So suppose I wasn’t home?”
“Then I’d know you were out cheating, you ill-begotten son. Pour a drink for little Eve.” He went lithely, gracefully, to a liquor cabinet, poured bourbon and added soda, and brought it to her. “Do you cheat on me?” she said.
“You bet I do,” he said.
“Don’t ever let me catch you.”
“Nobody catches me when I cheat.”
She drank of her drink, set it away, slipped out of her coat, took up the glass, and went to a divan. She drank again and placed the glass on an end-table. “Come here by me,” she said softly.
“Take your time,” Grant said.
“I’m burning,” she said.
“It’ll keep,” he said.
She took up her drink again. “What have you been doing?”
“When?”
“Now. Before I came.”
“Watching TV.”
“Very exciting.”
“Baby, I get my excitement when I’m not home. Home, I take it easy. What about Senor?” he said.
“The hell with Senor,” Evangeline said.
“Baby, you’re just begging for trouble, aren’t you?”
“What’s the matter? Are you afraid?”
“I’m afraid of nothing, and you know it.”
“Are you afraid of Senor?”
“The hell with Senor.”
“That’s what I said. So why are you bugging me with Senor?”
He gulped bourbon again. “Because you got a good thing there. Why spoil it?”
“For you I’d spoil anything.”
“Sure. You spoil it with Senor and you spoil it for me too, you stupid fool. Suppose he decided to come visit you tonight?”
“So what?” she flared. “What am I? A prisoner? A slave? So I went for a walk, so I went to a movie, so I went out for a drink, so I went to a girl friend.” She subsided. “Come over here to me, Billy-boy.”
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “You’re gorgeous. But you’re an awful chump.”
“Why? Because I go for you?”
“That’s exactly why.”
“I couldn’t agree more. You’re a disease.”
“Diseases are curable.”
“Not this disease.”
“Cut it out,” he said. “If I told you once, I told you a million times. Bill Grant is temporary, a temporary guy. Bill Grant has got things to do, a big score to make. Two, three times in my life, I almost made it, but it slipped by. Okay. I’m not discouraged. I’m right in there, seeking, looking, angling all the time. I’m looking for a big score and I’ll make it.”
“Sure you will, Billy-boy.”
“This trick in Miami, it’s a stopover. Working here for Senor who thinks he’s a big shot, it’s a stopover. You? You’re a stopover. They want me back in Havana and I might go. I’m looking for the big score. Maybe I’ll even go back to London. I’ve got some friends who are doing pretty fair there. But I’m surely not a guy to have a chick hanging on to his coat-tails. Now why don’t you get that through your head?”
“You’re not going anywhere yet, are you?”
“No.”
“And I haven’t been in your way, have I?”
“No.”
“And I’ve been helping out pretty fair, haven’t I?”
“Yes,” said Grant.
“Do you love me, Billy?”
“No.”
“Do you like me?”
“Yes.”
“Then come over here by me. Now. Right now. Please.”
“Beg.”
“I’m begging.”
“That’s the only way you like it — when you beg. And the only guy you go for — is a guy you’ve got to beg.”
“Only you, Billy. I never begged before. The other way around. They begged me. They still beg. And I never felt anything for any one of them. Only you, Billy.”
He turned the switch of a small table-lamp. A blue light flickered faintly. He snapped off all the other lights and in the blue dimness he went to her. “Hold me tight,” she whispered.
The dark man in the black car sat motionless, his eyes on the windows of the second floor apartment. When the lights went out he flinched, grunted; then he sat motionless again, rigid. After fifteen minutes, he started the car. It pulled out with a lurch, roared forward, settled to normal speed. He drove smoothly, observing all the traffic regulations. He parked the car one block from the Hotel Cascade, and walked the rest of the way.
He was a tall, powerful, thick-set man with kinky black hair, grey at the temples. His name was Pedro Orgaz but all of Miami knew him as Senor. He entered Hotel Cascade through the door at the foot of the stairs, and walked up quickly and silently.
He opened the door of 203 with his own key, locked the door behind him, and stood still in the dark, recovering his breath. Then he switched on all the lights. He searched the room, removing anything that might connect him to the premises, no matter how remotely. There was not much. He did not keep clothes there. He picked up two packets of matches and pocketed them. They carried the stamp of Club Columbo and he was the owner of Club Columbo.
He searched through all the drawers of a dresser and a table. He found a picture of himself and Evangeline Ashley taken one afternoon when they were out on a fishing trip. He slipped the picture into his jacket pocket. He found an envelope from Club Columbo, one envelope. He was giving Evangeline Ashley a thousand dollars a month. On the first day of each month he brought her a thousand dollars in cash. He was a married man and dared not write checks to a woman he was keeping.
On the first day of each month he brought a thousand dollars in cash in an envelope. Sometimes he would leave the cash and take the envelope, sometimes he left the cash with the envelope. Each envelope bore the imprint of Club Columbo. There was no risk involved. Anybody could have an envelope from Club Columbo. But for what he was now planning, he wanted no vestige of any connection with himself in that room. There was but one envelope. He slipped that into his pocket beside the picture.
He searched the room again, very carefully. There was nothing in it that pertained to Pedro Orgaz. He went to a small table on which there were many bottles of whiskey. He selected a bottle of Canadian Club, uncorked the bottle, and drank the raw whiskey directly from its mouth. He corked the bottle and replaced it.
Then he drew a large silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and mopped his face. Then, painstakingly, he wiped every item and every area of the room where his fingerprints may have been impressed. Then, handkerchief in hand, he switched off the lights, wiped the doorknob and turned it, wiped the outside doorknob, and locked the door.
He had left the room exactly as he had found it. An expert would not have known anyone had been there, let alone Evangeline Ashley. He went down the stairs quietly and out into the street and walked quickly to his car. He drove to his club and assumed his normal duties as owner and host; normal, except that he was morose, preoccupied, and he was drinking.