‘Don’t say a word,’ Neal told him.
‘Please. Don’t hurt me.’
‘That’s four,’ Neal said.
And whipped the pistol straight up from the center of Vince’s chest. It struck him under the chin. His teeth clacked together. His head must’ve been raised slightly; an instant after his teeth collided, the back of his head thonked the floor. His eyes bugged out. Then he squeezed them shut. His entire sweaty red face seemed to be squeezed into furrows of pain. Blood spilled from a gash on the point of his chin.
At the sound of a door sliding open, Neal looked up. Sue leaned into the house. She squinted toward the foyer. ‘What’s goin on?’ she asked.
‘It’s me,’ Neal called. ‘Time to go. Tell Tracy.’
She called over her shoulder, ‘Tracy! Let’s get.’ Then she rushed over the carpet. As she approached the foyer, she slowed down. She stopped beside Vince and stared down at him. ‘He don’t look real good,’ she said.
His eyes opened. He squinted up at Sue as if staring into painful sunlight.
‘Shut your eyes or I’ll shut ’em for you,’ Neal said.
He shut them.
Marta came running into the house. She was gasping for air, dripping. She must’ve just climbed out of the pool. She still wore only the pants of her swimsuit. The top swung in her hand, flipping and jerking as she hurried through the den.
She stopped beside Sue. Out of breath, she bent over at the waist and clutched her knees. Water spilled down her body, dribbled off her chin and breasts, formed a puddle around her feet. ‘Jesus,’ she gasped. ‘What . . . happened to him?’
‘I did,’ Neal muttered. ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’
Sue started to say, ‘Did ya find . . .?’
Neal guessed what was coming. He didn’t want Vince to hear it.
The blow from the gun opened Vince’s cheek and knocked his head sideways. He went limp.
‘I found it,’ Neal said. ‘It’s in the car.’
‘I guess he’s . . . out cold,’ Marta said, still bent over and breathing hard. ‘First time I’ve ever . . . seen him . . . without a hard-on.’
‘He’s a real lady’s man,’ Neal said. ‘He had big plans for you two.’
‘We oughta get,’ Sue said, ‘or else he’s gonna come to and you’ll have to whack him again.’
‘You ready?’ Neal asked Marta.
She gave him a quick grin. Her swimsuit top had fallen to the floor. She dipped down and snatched it up. Standing straight, she slipped her arms into the straps, cupped her breasts in the soggy hide, and reached behind her back. A few seconds later, she said, ‘All set.’
Neal opened the door. He watched Vince while the women rushed out.
No sign that the guy was regaining his senses.
Neal waited until Marta and Sue reached the road. Then he backed out of the house and pulled the door shut. He shoved the pistol into his pocket and ran.
At the gate, he glanced back. The front door was still shut.
Marta and Sue were already climbing into the Jeep. Neal fished the keys out of his pocket, then raced for the Jeep like a sprinter, the keys jangling. Marta turned in the driver’s seat. She stretched out an arm. He slapped the keys into her hand. As he vaulted the side, the engine grumbled to life.
The Jeep lurched forward and picked up speed.
Neal gazed down the road behind them.
No sign of Vince.
Moments later, they swept around a bend and there was no more reason to watch the rear.
‘I believe we made it,’ Neal said.
Marta turned her head. ‘Do you think he’ll call the police on us?’
‘No way. Cops are about the last thing he wants to see. He’s terrified they’ll show up and arrest him.’
‘So he was involved?’ Marta asked.
‘Sure was. He hired Glitt to do the murder, just like we figured.’
Sue grinned over her shoulder. ‘Wait’ll he finds out his money’s gone. Ya did get it, right?’
In answer, Neal reached down into the storage space behind his seat. He gripped the bag by its crumpled top and lifted it into sight.
‘All right!’
Marta glanced back. ‘Hope you looked inside.’
‘Oh, I did. Chock full of cash.’
‘Where was it?’ she asked.
‘In his bedroom closet. I found it while you were doing your high-dive act. Which, by the way, was spectacular.’
‘You watched?’
‘Some of it.’
She made a face as if she’d tasted something bad. ‘Terrific,’ she muttered. ‘You weren’t supposed to see that.’
‘It was great,’ Neal said.
‘It was humiliating. I only did it . . .’
‘I know why you did it.’
She scowled. ‘You were supposed to be looking for the money.’
‘I know.’
‘Y’oughta be flattered,’ Sue told her.
‘I couldn’t help myself,’ Neal said. ‘You were a sight to behold.’
‘Terrific. Glad you appreciated it. I just wish you hadn’t watched, that’s all. It made me feel . . . like a slut or something, doing that for a slimy creep like him. Not to mention, I thought I’d end up breaking my neck. That board was so damn high . . . I could see the top of his roof. I kept jumping up and down, and I’m thinking any second you’ll honk the horn so I can quit. I’m praying it honks before I slip and fall and kill myself. But you’re apparently at a window enjoying the show . . .’
‘The horn doesn’t work,’ Neal explained.
‘What?’
‘I tried it. It doesn’t work.’
Marta beeped the horn.
‘That’s odd,’ Neal said. ‘It didn’t work when I tried it.’
‘Did you have the ignition on?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘That’s why.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Nope. The horn’s like the radio. Won’t work when the car’s shut off.’
‘That’s stupid.’
Looking back at him, Sue said, ‘Reckon ya had to ring the doorbell and conk the daylights outa Vince, all ’cause ya didn’t know how to work the car horn.’
‘I guess so.’
‘Haw! What a hoot!’
‘I thought you knew that about the horn,’ Marta told him. ‘Why do you think I left the key in the ignition?’
‘I needed to turn it?’
‘Yeah. Like for the radio.’
‘Well . . .’ Neal shook his head.
‘You’ll be danged,’ Sue supplied for him.
He laughed.
Staying off main roads as much as possible, Marta picked turns at random. They made their way slowly, sometimes taking out-of-the-way detours, but generally moving closer to her apartment building.
Even most of the sidestreets were thick with traffic.
Guys in nearby cars stared at Marta and Sue. Some hooted, whistled, called out remarks and offers. Marta ignored them. Not Sue. She smiled at some of the guys. Waved at others. But then a laughing teen with friends in the bed of a pickup truck curled one hand into an O and poked his finger in and out of it. ‘Ain’t that charmin,’ Sue muttered, and flipped her finger at him.
‘Jesus H. Christ!’ Marta blurted. She swung out a hand and smacked Sue’s upper arm. ‘Don’t do that! You’re in L.A., for godsake. You’ll get us killed.’
‘Ya see what he done?’
‘It doesn’t matter what he did.’ Marta swerved to a curb and stopped the car.
Neal watched the pickup truck continue on up the road.
Marta faced Sue.
‘Ya gonna kick me out?’ Sue asked.
‘No, of course not. Just don’t do anything like that again. It doesn’t matter what someone does, just ignore it from now on. Okay?’
‘Well . . .’
‘Marta’s right,’ Neal said. ‘The city’s full of nut-cases who are just looking for a reason to blast yo
u.’
‘Me?’
‘Anyone.’
‘So the last thing you want to do,’ Marta said, ‘is antagonize a stranger.’
‘You know,’ Neal said, ‘it’d probably help the situation if you both put your shirts back on.’
‘We’re sitting on them,’ Marta told him.
‘Had to leave in a hurry,’ Sue added.
‘We’re stopped now,’ Neal pointed out.
Sue grinned at Marta. ‘He just don’t want all the other fellas getting a load of us.’
‘Selfish bastard,’ Marta said.
They both laughed.
‘Comedians,’ Neal said.
Still laughing, they unlatched their seatbelts, squirmed, shifted, scooted upward, and managed to tug their shirts out from under their rumps. Then they leaned forward and put them on.
‘Thank you, ladies.’
‘Yer welcome,’ they said in unison.
During the remainder of the drive, there were no more shouts or whistles, hoots or remarks or obscene gestures. But the guys in nearby cars still turned their heads and stared.
Fifty-One
Neal placed the sack of money on top of the coffee table in Marta’s living room. Then they stared at it for a while, sometimes glancing at each other.
‘Should we look at it?’ Marta asked.
‘It’s ours,’ Neal said.
‘Can ya’ll hang on till I take a leak?’ Sue asked.
‘No hurry,’ Neal told her.
‘None at all,’ Marta said. ‘In fact, why don’t we call an official time-out for five or ten minutes? I want to get out of this wet suit, myself. Soon as I’m into some dry clothes, I’ll make a batch of margaritas. We can have a little party and count the take.’
‘My kind of gal,’ Neal said.
Sue glanced at him.
He wasn’t sure what to make of the look, but he said, ‘You, too.’
Sue and Marta looked at each other as if they shared an amusing secret.
‘What?’ Neal asked.
‘It’s just . . . ya don’t gotta do that.’
‘What?’
‘All that “you, too” stuff.’
‘And all that “both of you” stuff,’ Marta added.
‘It’s kinda silly.’
‘I’m just trying to . . . be nice.’
‘Ya don’t gotta be that nice.’
‘We aren’t going to flip out if we don’t receive equal treatment.’
‘Right,’ Sue said. ‘I ain’t . . . I’m not jealous of Marta, and she’s not jealous of me.’
‘We’ve got an understanding,’ Marta said.
They grinned at each other.
Then they headed off together.
Neal felt strange: relieved but curious, and a bit as if he were the odd man out. He realized that he’d been feeling that way, off and on, ever since Marta and Sue had first encountered each other.
No, not from the very first.
It had started after Sue’s confession that she’d gone into Marta with the bracelet; to prove the bracelet worked, she’d taken Marta out of the room and revealed a couple of things. Secrets that Marta had supposedly been keeping from Neal.
What the hell sort of secrets?
Can’t be anything really major, he told himself.
But the gals hadn’t been the same, since. They’d developed a bond of some kind.
Neal wished he could be in on it.
Just be thankful they haven’t turned into raving, jealous dogs.
Lucky thing.
It isn’t luck, it’s a miracle.
Marta and Sue sat on the sofa. They had both changed out of their swimsuits: Marta into a white, oversized T-shirt and Sue into her white pleated miniskirt and yellow knit pullover. They were both barefoot. They sat close together, their knees at the edge of the coffee table. Each held a margarita, but hadn’t taken a drink yet. The salt was thick and white around the rims of their glasses.
Before sitting down, they had cleared off the table. Now there was nothing on it except Neal’s drink, down near the end in front of Marta.
Neal stood across the table from the women, holding the grocery sack. ‘Ready?’ he asked.
‘Let ’er rip,’ Sue said.
He leaned over and up-ended the sack.
The money spilled out. Bundles of bills, bound by rubber bands, dropped from the ragged mouth of the bag and tumbled toward the table. Thick stacks and thin stacks, they cascaded out and fell, flopped onto the table, whapped the wood surface like note pads tossed onto a desk, thumped it like paperback books.
After a few seconds, they no longer pounded wood; they landed instead on stacks and bundles of money, hitting with softer sounds. The final few packs, after hitting, slid silently down the gray and green slopes.
When the sack was nearly weightless, forty or fifty loose bills floated out and drifted toward the heap. A broken rubber band fell out. And then a foot-long, curled strip of white paper with rows of blue ink.
As it slid down the slope of money, Neal caught it. He stretched it taut between his hands and looked at it.
‘A grocery receipt?’ Marta said.
He nodded. The receipt was dated July 6, 1995. Only a few days before Elise’s death. The purchases were itemized.
Neal didn’t want to know what she’d bought. Bad enough to be reminded of her, still alive, pushing a grocery cart down a supermarket aisle . . . Alka-Seltzer. She’d bought Alka-Seltzer.
Memories rushed into him.
Elise in her blue satin pajamas.
The feel of the foil packet in her shirt pocket.
The way he’d felt breathless while she was gulping down a glassful of the fizzing medication.
How she had been, that first time, when she’d let him come over from the sofa and enter her. How nervous she’d felt, and embarrassed, and excited. She had never allowed anyone to do that before. Neal had been the first. And the only.
‘Y’okay?’ Sue asked.
She and Marta were both staring at him.
He shook his head. Crunching the receipt in his hand, he said, ‘It made me think about Elise, that’s all.’
‘Well, don’t go and get sad on us. We’re trying to have a party, here.’
Marta, looking solemn, gestured with her glass and said, ‘We should drink to her.’
‘A toast,’ Sue said. ‘Neat idea.’
Neal stepped to the end of the table, picked up his margarita, and returned to the middle. Across the table from him, Marta and Sue got to their feet.
‘To Elise,’ he said. ‘I wish they hadn’t killed you. But since they did . . .’ He struggled to keep control. ‘Wherever you are – I hope to God you’re up in Heaven if there is such a place – may you be looking down on us with a smile tonight.’ Voice trembling, he said, ‘I couldn’t save you. I let them kill you, but . . . we’re making them pay . . .’ He swallowed hard. ‘They’ll pay big for what they did to you.’
‘Big time,’ Sue muttered.
Marta nodded. ‘Big time.’
‘This is the first installment,’ Neal said. ‘This is where they paid in green. The next installment, it’ll be in red.’
‘Fuckin A,’ Sue said.
Neal stretched his arm out. As he held his margarita glass above the money pile, Marta and Sue both reached forward and clinked their glasses against his. Crumbs of salt, knocked off, sprinkled down on the cash.
‘That’s sure a heap of money,’ Sue said.
Nodding, Neal held his glass steady while Marta refilled it from the blender’s pitcher.
‘Five hundred thousand dollars,’ Marta said. Done pouring, she headed for the kitchen.
‘I wonder if it’s all there,’ Neal said.
‘Do we want to count it?’ Marta asked over her shoulder.
Sue frowned at the pile of cash. ‘It’d take us halfway till Christmas to count all that.’
Neal set his glass on the table and picked up one of the bundles. It was about an inch
thick. He flipped through it with his thumb. ‘This one’s all twenties,’ he said. He tossed it onto the pile and picked up another. ‘Fifties.’
Sue, inspecting a bundle, said, ‘This one’s only tens.’
‘Glitt must’ve wanted some denominations that’d be easy to spend.’
Sue delved into the pile, spreading the stacks around as if she were looking for a dark sock in a load of laundry. After a while, she said, ‘Well, a lot of ’em’s hundreds.’
Marta came into the living room, a platter of tortilla chips in one hand, a bowl of salsa in the other. ‘So, have you got it all counted yet?’
‘Has Hell froze over yet?’ Sue asked her.
Marta set down the snacks at the far end of the table. ‘I don’t see any big reason to count it. If it’s actually the payoff money . . .’ She looked at Neal and raised her eyebrows.
‘It almost has to be,’ he said.
‘How do you know for sure?’
Neal set down his drink. ‘First off, I saw Glitt’s face in his mind.’ He crossed the room and grabbed a straight-backed chair. As he carried it toward the table, he said, ‘That was right at the start of things, when you two were at the bar and Vince was making the drinks. He’d just told about Elise being murdered.’ Neal placed his chair near the chips and salsa, and sat down. ‘One of you . . . Sue . . . asked who’d killed her. When he said he didn’t know, his mind flashed a picture of Glitt.’
‘Fantastic,’ Marta said. She dipped a chip, poked it into her mouth, then passed the chips to Sue.
Sue pulled out a handful.
‘Salsa?’ Marta asked.
Sue shook her head and asked Neal, ‘How’d ya find out about the money?’
‘That movie you asked him about.’
‘Haw! Thought so!’
‘The million dollar payoff in a parking lot. Chuck Norris.’
Sue beamed.
‘It was inspired,’ Marta told her. ‘And so subtle!’
Narrowing her eyes, Sue nodded. ‘Did ya catch on how I changed it to a whole million. Tricky, huh? Didn’t wanta make him suspicious.’
Neal and Marta burst out laughing. Sue watched them laugh. She looked quite pleased with herself. She took a sip of her margarita, then raised the handful of tortilla chips to her mouth and grabbed a chip with her teeth. She chewed, watching them laugh. After swallowing, she said, ‘Just call me a genius.’