“What?”
“When we are eating. Then I will tell you.”
They sat down at the small table she had set by the window, and she got up almost immediately and dug into the pocket of her slacks and took out folded bills and sat down again.
She held the money up and said, “This is until the end of this month of June. She talked to the one you found, that Amparo, on the telephone. Amparo will come here on Wednesday and after I show her where everything is kept and explain how things must be done, then I may go. And she will give me a letter. I think I can find work in California. Maybe I will work for an important actress. Mmmmm. This is very good food, Mister Kellee!”
“What else did she talk about?”
“Oh, one minute. Something else to show.” She hurried into her bedroom and returned with a savings account book, handed it to him gravely. “Inspect it, please.”
The total, deposited in small amounts over two years was just over eleven hundred dollars.
“Obviously you could have no idea you were associating with such a rich girl,” she said loftily. “I shall pay my share of the expenses of the trip. I would like to know what it is they do to these very small shrimp.”
“I am honored to have the attentions of such a rich lady. What else did Missy Crissy have on her buzzard’s mind?”
“She is not so bad as all that! She asked that I do a special favor for her tomorrow night. She is upset. She confided in me. She had tears in her eyes. Sometimes it is possible to feel sorry for her.”
“What about?”
“She and the Captain Staniker had a great quarrel before he went away to the Bahamas. That is something I did not know. She told him she never wanted to see him again. She said she was tired of his coming over and complaining about all his troubles, and drinking her whisky and getting ugly and mean. She ended the affair. Now the Captain has returned. He had telephoned her. He insists on seeing her. She begged him not to come here. When he telephoned the second time last evening, the boy was with her. She said the boy became very agitated. She says the boy has an infatuation for her. She admits there was an affair with the Captain, but she looked into my eyes and said there had been no relationship with the boy. That is the kind of lie one cannot expect a housemaid to believe. But I suppose it is a matter of her pride. Even though she knows I know, she cannot say it. It would make her appear foolish, this seduction of a silly boy who could be her son. She said the boy is acting strange and violent, and thinks to protect her from the evil Captain. She cannot make the boy understand that she can protect herself without help.”
“Where was the boy while all this was going on?”
“We spoke in the kitchen, sitting with cups of coffee, like old friends. Perhaps in a way we are. She said that all of this has exhausted her. Perhaps the boy was asleep in her bed while we spoke. I could not say. She said that tonight she is going to be very firm with the boy and send him away forever. Doubtless he will make a great scene. She says she cannot endure such nonsense any longer. She says the Captain is a bore and the boy is a fool. She does not want any ugliness here which will bring the police. Tonight she will finish it with the boy and that will be the end of it. And so tomorrow she asks that I remain here all day and all evening. We shall close the big gates. Lock them with the chain and the padlock as when no one is here. She will turn the switch which silences the phone. Should either one arrive, the Captain or the boy, I can go onto my porch and shout to them that she has gone away, and they can see from the gate her car is gone, an accident of some convenience. She explained she wishes to have a very quiet day alone. I shall fix lunch for her, fix an early dinner, and she will take sleeping pills and go to bed early and see if she can sleep the clock around, or longer, to restore herself. She says she will lock the doors to her bedroom to avoid any chance of the boy bothering her when he comes to remove his sailboat. She said he has promised to come by, in the boat of a friend, at dusk tomorrow and take it away from here. She suggests that I might go around to the bay side of the house at nine o’clock to look and see if the boat is gone, and look in at her to see that she is not being bothered by the boy. She has engaged herself in crude behavior I think, and now wishes to escape, and rest, and perhaps find someone more agreeable.” She gave him a wicked wink. “It is possible of course that she is no longer young enough to accommodate such a hearty young man without finally becoming exhausted, even such a type as she is.”
“So we do not go back to the beach tomorrow?”
“It is a pity. When you leave me tonight, you can help me close the gates. They are heavy.” She looked at the clock. “Look! The time! Oh, we will miss the beginning! Hurry!”
As she sat beside him in the new hard-top movie house at the shopping plaza, gasping and squirming at the magic excitements of Bond, digging her nails into his hand and wrist at the moments of deadliest danger, he followed the plot with a portion of his attention, and at last devised a plausible way to handle the situation.
The boy’s car was gone when they returned. When they were in the little apartment she chattered about the movie until he said, “Lovely lady, I, Señor Jaime Bond, must ask your assistance in helping me elude the deadly agents of Schmaltz.”
“Ah!” she said, eyes sparkling. “I am service you, hah?”
“I think your native tongue might be more accurate, Señorita, even though the English version has a certain unique charm.”
“So. How may I be of service?”
“I shall leave now, but I shall only appear to leave. In truth I shall drive away, conceal my car in a small wooded place not far from the entrance to the road which leads here. We shall have left the gate ajar. I will steal back on foot, slip inside, close it the rest of the way and fasten the padlock. I will then creep quietly up to these quarters which by then will be dark, and here I shall hide all night, all day tomorrow, and all of tomorrow night until the deadly agents start seeking me elsewhere.”
The sparkle of fun faded to dubiousness. “You are serious?”
“Of course. I shall take great care not to risk showing myself to your employer, Señorita. She too is an agent of Schmaltz. A very clever one. And I shall have much needed rest and recuperation. We shall be very sly. We shall speak in whispers. And you shall take comfort in knowing you have served The Cause.”
“She would be very angry if...” She paused and shrugged. “But she never comes up here. Anyway, the job is nearly at an end.” Her frown disappeared, and her eyes shone with mischief again. “You ask a great sacrifice of me, Señor. I shall force myself to endure it and help you outwit the forces of evil.” She moved closer. “I shall even share my toothbrush!”
“No one could ask more.”
As he went quietly up her outside stairway after hiding the car, walking back and chaining and locking the gates, he felt the small weight of the revolver against the side of his right thigh as he climbed each step. He opened the screen door and locked it behind him with hook and eye. When she did not answer his whisper, he knew she was in the bedroom. He wedged the revolver down, out of sight, between the cushions of the couch.
As he entered the dark bedroom she said, softly, “Could you be Señor Jaime, sir, who outwits everyone?”
“You have made a correct identification.”
She giggled. He undressed in darkness. He slid into her bed, took her into his arms, feeling the vital warmth of her under the sheerness of fabric. He was prepared for all her cheery, greedy acceptances, her happy little love games and chortlings. But she was strangely rigid in his arms, fists against his chest. Her body was trembling and he heard a little catch of her breath in her throat.