“And I?” Vivienne asked, with surprising dignity considering the fact that she was lifting her dress to pull it over her head.
“Nobody can hurt you,” he said. “That’s one of the things I like about you.”
“I am hard, am I?” she cried. She wriggled her dress down over her hips and tugged at the zipper. “I am not flesh and bone, I am made of metal. That is what you think.”
“Don’t be dumb, baby. I know what you’re made of, and it isn’t metal. Leave that zipper. Fix it outside.”
He handed her a shoe. Hopping on one foot, she put it on, suddenly seeming about to cry. “You have this wonderful idea, you, for making money. Most safe. And good God, how badly we need this money, you and I! Perhaps it settles nothing, but we need it, to have time to decide. And suddenly you are frightened because they ask you a few questions. Because a judge scolds you. All the thought, the planning-”
Holding the foot of the bed, she thrust her foot into her second shoe. “But Paul, with everything else you are so nice to me! Why are all rich Americans fat and bald and tiresome? Can you answer that?”
“Not right now,” he said, pushing the remainder of her clothing at her. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Now for God’s sake hurry. Here’s your garter belt! Christ, if you left that! Go around the corner of the corridor. You can hear the elevator. And don’t get the clever idea of coming out ahead of time so she sees you, to settle things that way. It wouldn’t be clever at all.”
He kissed her forehead quickly and propelled her out the door. There was one good thing, he thought, about this crummy hotel. When the elevator was in operation it clanked horribly, but thank God it still was silent. He watched the French girl. One heel wasn’t all the way inside her shoe, and she had to hop. Her dress was tight about the hips. Going or coming, clothed or unclothed, it was a wonderful thing to see the way she moved, and Slater rubbed the back of one hand across his lips, which suddenly seemed very dry. How in heaven’s name could he be expected to give that up?
“God,” he said softly, and swallowed.
Stepping back, he closed the door and looked around the room quickly. He put the bed in order, drawing the sheets tight and plumping up the pillows. He took out a colorful short-sleeved sports shirt. After he put it on, he examined his face in the mirror. He rubbed lipstick from the corner of his mouth, using a Kleenex which he was careful to flush away. His hair was short enough so it needed no attention.
He forced himself to stand still and look around the room, taking it one section at a time. The careful scrutiny showed him a lipstick-tipped cigarette. He field-stripped it and threw way the reddened paper. Satisfied, he stretched out on the bed and picked up that week’s issue of the Island Times, which was still, he saw, almost entirely taken up with the murder of the Englishman, Albert Watts.
But he was too unsettled to read. He threw the paper aside. To disarm suspicion completely, he should be doing something normal and routine. Going to the bathroom, he tucked a towel inside his shirt collar and lathered his face. He had shaved before Vivienne came, and scraping off the lather with long sweeping strokes took only a few seconds. His hand jerked as he finally heard the labored clanking of the elevator. He was pretending to work on the stubborn spot on his upper lip when a key turned in the lock.
“Darling?” he called. “I’m in here.”
He went to the bathroom door, the razor in his hand. His wife Martha, an ash-blonde with gray eyes and well-marked cheekbones, put down her overnight bag.
“Paul.”
She brushed back her hair with a weary gesture, went to the bureau and took a cigarette out of the package there. She held herself with her usual erectness, but she seemed very tired.
She tapped the cigarette on the bureau. “Well, it was a wild-goose chase, I’m afraid. The woman who used to make those wonderful woven trays has been sick for three months, and she didn’t have a thing for me. After that there didn’t seem to be much point in going on to the other village for a few baskets. I turned tail and came home. I suppose I was a little discouraged, Paul. I’ve been counting heavily on those trays. Well, one of these days our luck will change.”
She succeeded in smiling. Slater looked at her for a long moment. He wiped off what was left of the lather and threw the towel into the bathtub. Coming into the bedroom, he put both arms around her.
“Never mind, dear,” he said, holding her very tight. “It doesn’t matter. But we can’t go on scraping and patching like this. It isn’t fair to you. You don’t deserve to live this way, and I’m going to do something about it.”
He felt her body stiffen. “And I don’t mean what you think, either. If I can’t make some legitimate money I’ll drown myself and put an end to it. There won’t be any more of those dirty little errands through the customs. I’m through. They can find themselves another sucker.”
She pulled back. “Do you mean that, Paul?” she said eagerly, searching his face.
“Damn right I mean it,” he told her. “I’ve been teetering. They scared me, I don’t mind admitting, but I didn’t want to give it up just because I was scared. It seemed like a lousy reason. I’ve been fooling with the idea of doing it once more before I quit. But I know what would happen. I’d do it once more after that, and then once more, and I’d go on doing it till finally that fifty-to-one shot came in and they caught me. The time to stop is now. I made up my mind when you tried to smile.”
“Thank God, Paul,” she said softly. “You don’t know what I’ve been going through. I honestly don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.” She laughed ruefully. “It’s absurd to be so emotionally dependent, but that seems to be the way I’m put together.”
He kissed her hard, pulling her in tight against his chest. “It’s not absurd. It’s wonderful, and you know it. I don’t know what’s got into me lately. I’ve had a kind of desperate feeling-I can’t describe it. But it’s over now, and suddenly I wonder what I’ve been worried about. I’m young and able-bodied. I’m not deformed. I have a reasonably good education and good table manners. Somewhere in this world there’s a philanthropist who’s going to offer me a job.”
“Of course there is, darling,” she whispered. “The only thing you need is confidence. Thank God you’ve come to your senses. I was so afraid-”
“Come and sit down. You must be tired.”
He took her to the bed. She kicked off her shoes and sat back against the stacked pillows. “You can be so sweet, Paul. What did I do with my cigarette?”
He retrieved it and looked for a match.
“You really are getting absent-minded,” she said gaily. “You let another cigarette go out on the table. Before we go looking for your philanthropist, I’m going to break you of the habit of putting a cigarette down wherever you happen to be.”
He muttered something. She leaned forward for the light, holding the cigarette between two fingers. Her nostrils flared slightly.
“Aren’t you using a new after-shaving lotion, darling?” She sniffed again and said judiciously, “I don’t know if I approve or not. It’s pretty strong for a man.”
“Just trying it out,” Slater said, leaning forward so she couldn’t see his face. His hands felt damp, and he wiped them on his shorts.
She put the tip of one finger against a mark on his neck, inside the open collar of the sports shirt. There were several slightly irregular indentations there, that might have been made by teeth. Again her nostrils flared. She was frowning slightly.
Airplane engines were throbbing high in the sky. Slater looked nervously at his watch.
“That must be the plane from Miami,” he said. “It’s late.”
3
Getting down from the horse-drawn carriage that had brought him from the airport, Michael Shayne was greeted by a small English lady who could have been any age between thirty and fifty. She wore a long-sleeved print dress, buttoned to the neck.