“Hello, Frankie,” she said. “Nice surprise.”
He stood up, pulses hammering. “Nicer than you think, baby. I’ve brought you something.”
She saw the box behind him on the dressing table and moved toward it, flat muscles rippling with silken smoothness beneath dusky skin. Her exclamation was like a delighted child’s.
“Tell me what it is.”
“Open it, baby.”
Her fingers worked deftly at the knot of the cord, lifted the top of the box away. Without speaking, she shook out the luxurious fur coat, slipped into it and hugged it around her body. She stood entranced, her back to Frankie, looking at her reflection in the dim depths of the mirror.
Closing in behind her, he took her shoulders in his hands. Capturing the hands in hers, she pulled them around her body and under the coat. Her head fell back onto his shoulder. Her breath sighed through parted lips. He could feel in his hands the vibrations of her shivering flesh.
She said sleepily, “You’re a sweet guy, Frankie. A lucky guy, too. You’re going places. Too bad I can’t go along.”
“Why not, baby? Why not go along?”
Her head rolled on his shoulder, her lips burning his neck. “Look, Frankie. When I go for a ride, I go first-class. No cheap tourist accommodations for Linda.”
“I don’t get you, baby. You call mink cheap?”
“It’s not the mink. It’s being second. It’s the idea of taking what’s left over.”
“You mean Taffy?”
She closed her eyes and said nothing, and Frankie laughed softly. “Taffy’s expendable, baby. Strictly expendable.”
“Just like that? Maybe she won’t let go.”
“How the hell can she help it?”
“She’s legal. That always helps.”
“Married? You think Taffy and I are married?” He laughed again, his shoulders shaking with it. “Taffy and I are temporary, baby. I never figure it any other way. Nothing on paper. All off the record. We last just as long as I want us to.”
She twisted against him, her arms coming up around his neck. Her breath was in his mouth.
“How long, Frankie? How long do you want?”
His hand moved down the soft curve of her spine, drawing her in. He said hoarsely, “As far as Taffy’s concerned, I quit wanting when I saw you. Tonight I’ll make it official.”
She put her mouth over his, and he felt the hot flicking of her tongue. Then she pushed away violently, staggering back against the dressing table. The mink hung open from her shoulders.
“Afterward, Frankie,” she whispered. “Afterward.”
He stood there blind, everything dissolved in shimmering waves of heat. At last, sight returning, he laughed shakily and moved to the door. Hand on the knob, he looked back at her.
“Like you say, baby — afterward.”
He went out into the hall and through the rear door into the alley. There was a small area back there in which he kept his convertible Caddy tucked away. Long, sleek, ice-blue and glittering chrome. A long way from the old Plymouth.
Behind the wheel, sending the big machine singing through the streets, he felt the tremendous uplift that comes to a man who approaches a crisis with assurance of triumph. His emotional drive was in harmony with the leashed power of the Caddy’s throbbing engine. Wearing his new personality, he could hardly remember the old Frankie. It was impossible to believe that he had once, not long ago, been driven by shame to a longing for death. Life was good. All it required was luck and guts. With luck and guts, a guy could do anything. A guy could live forever.
At the uptown apartment house, he ascended in the swift, whispering elevator and let himself into his living room with the key he carried. The living room itself was dark, but light sliced into the darkness from the partially open door of the bedroom. Silently, he crossed the carpet that wasn’t actually quite up to his knees and pushed the bedroom door all the way open.
Taffy was reading in bed. Her sheer nylon gown kept nothing hidden, but what it showed was nothing Frankie hadn’t seen before, and he was tired of it. He stood for a moment looking at her, wondering what would be the best way to do it. The direct way, he decided. The tough way. Get it over with, and to hell with it.
From the bed, Taffy said, “Hi, honey. You’re early tonight.”
Without answering, Frankie walked over to the closet and slammed back one of the sliding panels. He dragged a cowhide overnight bag off a shelf and carried it to the bed. Snapping the locks, he spread the bag open.
Taffy sat up straighter against her silk pillows, two small spots of color burning suddenly over her cheek bones. “What’s up, Frankie? You going someplace?”
He went to a chest of drawers, returned with pajamas and a clean shirt. “That ought to be obvious. As a matter of fact, I’m going to a hotel.”
“Why, Frankie? What’s the idea?”
He looked down at her, feeling the strong emotional drive. “The idea is that we’re through, baby. Finished. I’m moving out.”
Her breath whistled in a sharp sucking inhalation, and she swung out of bed in a fragile nylon mist. Her hands clutched at him.
“No, Frankie! Not like this. Not after all the luck I’ve brought you.”
He laughed brutally, remembering the old man. “It wasn’t you who brought me luck, baby. It was someone else. That’s something you’ll never know anything about.”
He turned, heading for the chest again, and she grabbed his arm, jerking. He spun with the force of the jerk, smashing his backhand across her mouth. She staggered off until the underside of her knees caught on the bed and held her steady. A bright drop of blood formed on her lower lip and dropped onto her chin. A whimper of pain crawled out of her throat.
“Why, Frankie? Just tell me why.”
He shrugged. “A guy grows. A guy goes on to something better. That’s just the way it is, baby.”
“It’s more than that. It’s a lot bigger than that. You think I’ve been two-timing you, Frankie?”
He repeated his brutal laugh. “Two-timing me? I’ll tell you something, baby. I wouldn’t give a damn if you were sleeping with every punk in town. That’s how much I care.” He paused, savoring sadism, finding it pleasant. “You want it straight, baby? It’s just that I’m sick of you. I’m sick to my guts with the sight of you. That clear enough?”
She came back to him, slowly, lifting her arms like a supplicant. He waited until she was close enough, then he hit her across the mouth again.
Turning his back, he returned to the chest and got the rest of the articles he needed. Just a few things. Enough for the night and tomorrow. In the morning he’d send someone around to clean things out.
At the bed, he tossed the stuff into the overnight bag and snapped it shut.
Over his shoulder, he said, “The rent’s paid to the end of the month. After that, you better look for another place to live.”
She didn’t respond, and remembering his tooth brush, he went into the bathroom for it. When he came out, she was standing there with a .38 in her hand. It was the same .38 he’d once considered killing himself with. That had been the old Frankie, of course.
Not the new Frankie. Death was no consideration in the life of the new Frankie.
“You rotten son of a bitch,” she said.
He laughed aloud and started for her, and he just couldn’t believe it when the slug slammed into his shoulder.
He looked down in amazement at the place where the crimson began to seep, and his incredulous eyes raised just in time to receive the second slug squarely between them.
And, like the night the old man died, it was funny. In the last split second of sight, it wasn’t Taffy standing there with the gun at all. It was the old man again.