$20 Lust

4

I made it good.

There was this book I read once called The Screaming Mimi written by a guy named Fredric Brown. It was about this newspaperman, you see, and I have always been partial to novels about newspapermen, much as I have always been partial to novels by Fredric Brown.

Anyway, at one point in this book this newspaperman is alone in a room with this girl, and this girl is out of her skull, as well as being out of her clothing, and in her hand there is this knife. In order to avoid getting this knife between his ribs, this newspaperman begins talking. Talk, it seems, keeps this girl from doing much of anything, such as stabbing this newspaperman. He talks about everything under or over the sun, quotes Shakespearean soliloquies, rattles off farm prices, anything so long as he doesn’t stop talking. And finally someone comes and takes the girl away, and all is well, and that is that.

Which, more or less, is what I did. Since I didn’t know just where to start I started at the beginning, and if I left anything out I can’t remember what it might have been. I told her everything there was to tell about me and Mona and Louisville and Grace’s Lunch and oriental philosophy and God knows what else. Somewhere along the way I managed to talk her out of pulling the trigger, though just what it was that I mentioned that did the trick is something I’m afraid I will never know. Whatever it was, it worked, and I will be forever thankful to it.

Oh, yes. There was one part I didn’t bother recounting to her. I left out Rosie. For some reason I didn’t think she would understand, and even if she did, I wasn’t altogether proud of my participation in that particular bedroom farce. By all rules I acquitted myself nobly in that little battle of the sexes, but it wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted to dwell on.

I finished, finally, and I looked at her, timidly, and the gun was no longer centered upon my chest. It was pointing at the floor.

I felt a good deal better about the whole thing.

First she lowered the gun; then she lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lindsay,” she said, her voice one hell of a lot softer now, her tone downright apologetic. “It seems I’ve made a mistake. But it was a logical mistake. I have to be very careful.”

I started to tell her what the hell, mistakes happen, it’s all in the game. Then it occurred to me that maybe it was my turn to seize the advantage and push a little. After all, it was my room she was standing in with a cannon in her fist. If anyone had the right to demand an explanation, I did.

I said: “Your turn.”

She just looked at me.

“You came in here with a gun,” I told her. “You pointed that gun at me and scared me out of several years’ growth. And I’m a growing boy. Or at least I was.”

“But—”

“So it’s your turn to talk. It’s your turn to tell me just what in hell is making you so suspicious about everything. I think I have a right to know.”

She pursed her lips and I waited. Her hair was lovely now, the water making it all sleek and shiny, and her eyes had a feathery softness to replace the fire that had been in them when the gun was aimed at me.

“No,” she said finally. “It wouldn’t interest you.”

“Try me.”

“It’s not important,” she said. “I made a mistake and I’m sorry. Can’t we let it go at that?”

“No.”

“Pardon?”

“No, we can’t let it go at that. I want to get to the bottom of this, dammit. You’d better explain.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I’ll take the gun away from you and spank your behind for you.”

She looked at me. “You know,” she said after a minute, “I believe that’s just what you’d do. That’s just the sort of thing a man like you might do.”

“So do I get the brass ring?”

“Pardon?”

“Are you going to tell me what all this nonsense is about?”

“Well,” she said thoughtfully. “Well, I guess I have to, don’t I?”

I took the gun from her, looked at it cautiously, sniffed at the barrel the way the police always do in the movies and dropped it into the bureau drawer. Once the gun was in the drawer and the drawer shut I felt one hell of a lot better. Guns make me nervous.

Then I made her sit down on the bed, found a cigarette for her and a cigarette for me and lit both of them. I sat down on the chair — which no longer faced her window, but faced her instead — and took a deep drag on my cigarette. It was her show now and I waited for her to say something.

It took her awhile, and while I waited I could see how nervous she was. There was one hell of a lot of tension inside that pretty little body and it would probably be a good idea for her to talk some of it out. I was ready to listen. That was me — Lend-an-ear Lindsay, always willing and able to help out a damsel in distress.

“I’m in trouble,” she said. “Bad trouble.”

“Police trouble?”

She hesitated, then shook her head no.

“What kind?”

“Money trouble.”

“There’s another kind?”

She shrugged. “It’s hard to explain, Mr. Lindsay.”

“Ted.”

“Ted. I don’t know how to start.”

“Just plunge in. And by the way, what do I call you? Cinderella Sims sounds too good to be true.”

“It’s my real name. People generally call me Cindy.”

“Cindy Sims,” I said, trying it out. It sounded fine. I liked it.

“There were six of them,” she said, getting started again. “Five men and a girl. I had a job as a cashier at West of the Lake — that’s a gambling joint at Tahoe in Nevada. It’s called West of the Lake because there’s Lake Tahoe and the club is to the west of it.”

“Go on.”

“They were a confidence mob. You know, con men. Only I didn’t know it at the time. I thought they were just a party of tourists. That’s what they told me and I didn’t see any reason why it should be anything else. They said they were playing a practical joke on this other guy but they were actually trying to bilk him. I didn’t find this out until later.”

I digested this. She put out her cigarette and went on a little further.

“The man’s name was McGuire. I don’t know what he did. He was from Texas and I think somebody said he was an oilman or something. Everybody from Texas is an oilman. At least it seems that way. One of the men, a man named Eddie Reed, came to me and told me they were playing a joke on McGuire. They were offering him phony chips at a discount for him to turn in. He’d come in, buy a few thousand dollars’ worth of chips, fool around at the roulette wheel, and then cash the stack.”

“So?”

“So he would come in with chips that he hadn’t paid for. Say he comes in with three thousand dollars’ worth in his pocket, buys another three thousand worth, and breaks even on the wheel. When he cashes I give him six thousand. He’s three thousand ahead, minus what he has to pay for the chips.”

I thought it over. “Okay,” I said. “It doesn’t make sense. You can’t make phony chips that pass a Vegas house. They work pretty hard on monogram and color and everything else in the book. Those chips are as individual as fingerprints. I don’t get it.”

She grinned. “Neither did McGuire,” she said. “And the girl — she was a busty blonde named Lori Leigh — she kept him from getting much of anything, except what she had to offer. She was working with them from the inside, living with McGuire and wearing him out at night so that he couldn’t think straight during the day. I found this out later, you see. I didn’t understand any of it at the time. I thought it was a joke, the way Eddie Reed said it was.”

“Okay,” I said. “Go on.”

“The thing about the chips,” she said, “is that you couldn’t tell them from real ones.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Let me finish. You couldn’t tell them from real ones because they were real ones. Reed and the others had bought them from the house and hadn’t bothered to cash them in. Now do you see it?”

“No.”

“I’m glad, because neither did I. Not then. You see, Reed told me it was all a joke on McGuire. They were pretending to give him this method of cheating the house, when actually the house wasn’t losing a nickel. Reed wanted me to act like everything was perfectly okay when McGuire cashed in his chips. I was supposed to take it in stride if he seemed nervous or anything, instead of pushing the panic button the way we’re supposed to if something seems strange.”

“So?”

She stroked her chin. “Now it gets complicated.”

“It can’t get any more complicated than it already is.”

“It does, though. Want to hear more?”

“Go on.”

“After McGuire and Lori Leigh were steady bed partners, Reed got to work on McGuire. Played the slots next to him and got to talking with him. He played it just right, made McGuire look like a big man in front of the girl and McGuire ate it all up. They had dinner a couple times and Reed let it slip that it didn’t matter how much he gambled, he couldn’t lose anything. McGuire wanted to know why and Reed told him how he bought perfect fakes at fifty cents on the dollar. That way he had to come out ahead, even with the normal house percentage against the player.”

“And McGuire bit?”

“Evidently. He kept asking Reed to let him in on it. He was the kind of gambler who doesn’t belong in a house, always looking for a little of the best of it. He liked to gamble, but he liked it better if he couldn’t lose.”

“I know the type.”

“So did Reed. After a while he let himself be persuaded to buy some chips for McGuire. McGuire really had to talk hard to get him to agree. He was so completely sold it was ridiculous.”

“Keep talking.”

“Reed sold McGuire a hundred dollars’ worth of chips, ones he’d bought himself at the house a few days back. McGuire played with them, came out as little ahead, and cashed them in. They were perfectly legitimate, so naturally I cashed them. That was easy enough.”

“And?”

“More of the same. Next night it was two hundred bucks’ worth and McGuire was really getting hungry. He was loaded, but that kind of guy never has as much money as he’d like to have. He wanted more and he must have figured this gimmick as a steady source of income.”

“I think I’m beginning to get it.”

“From here on it’s simple. McGuire wants to buy a big load of fifty and hundred buck chips. Reed says he can’t handle the deal himself but he knows the men who can. Naturally they’re other members of the con mob. Reed makes the contact and they agree to let McGuire have a hundred thousand worth, cash in advance. McGuire figures to stay in Vegas the rest of his life, gamble every night and come out ahead every night.”

“He must have rocks in his head. A man can’t lose every night and cash out a winner every night without the management figuring which end is up.”

“Of course not. But don’t forget McGuire had Lori keeping his bed warm. He wasn’t in condition to think straight. Besides, he was convinced he could win money on his own hook. He had a system for roulette. Everybody does.”

I sighed.

“Okay,” I said. “They’ve got McGuire forking over fifty grand for a hundred grand worth of fake chips which, obviously, don’t exist. What do they do next? Just skip town? I suppose it would work but it might be pretty sloppy.”

She shook her head. “They were cuter than that,” she said. “Reed left and the guy who was supposed to be swinging the deal also left. Another guy, the one who was supposed to be partners in the deal, stayed with McGuire. Then two other guys break in.”

“Also part of the con mob?”

“Of course. Only they’re posing as police officers. They say they’ve overheard the whole thing, Reed and the other one are in jail, and they’ve come to arrest the partner — his name was Finch — and, also, McGuire.”

“Keep talking.”

“Finch explains that he and McGuire don’t know anything about it, that they got roped in without understanding the setup. The cop starts to soften and Finch pushes it. He offers a bribe. One cop wants to take the money and the other one doesn’t. They put on a nice little act until the ‘decent’ cop comes out ahead. Finch makes the payoff, flashes a roll and pays off both the cops. This makes it look better than if they asked McGuire for the money.”

“I get it.”

“Then the cops do it up brown. They explain that they’re going to have to pretend that Finch and McGuire skipped before they got there. They warn the two of them to stay out of Nevada for the rest of their lives, that they’re safe as long as they stay out of the state because their prints and pictures won’t go on the wire. The cops walk out, Finch goes to his room and McGuire, an honorable man, gets his wallet and pays Finch half the bribe money.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Doesn’t McGuire whine for his fifty thousand?”

“How can he? He’s wanted for fraud and a million other things. The people who took his money are supposedly under arrest and his money’s supposedly impounded by the police. If he does tumble to the whole thing, by that time everybody connected with it is a million miles away spending McGuire’s money.”

It was perfect, almost too perfect. It was based on the fundamental principle underlying every con game in the world — find a mark who wants a fast buck, make him work his way in hard, let him win a little at the start; play him along, let him sell himself on the one big deal that will set him up for life, get his stake and blow him off neatly so that he can’t bitch to the law.

I smoked another cigarette and thought about it. It could work — and, evidently, it had worked. It wouldn’t take on just anybody — you needed a mark who was dumber than most. But, as Barnum put it, there’s one born every minute.

It was lovely.

McGuire was left completely on the hook. His money was gone and he didn’t know who had taken it or how to get it back. The only two people he knew were Lori and Reed, and neither of them wound up with the dough. And he’d be in such a hell of a rush to get out of town that he wouldn’t even stop to think about them.

Fifty thousand dollars. It was a lot of dough. And, I realized with a start, it was the precise amount on my list. Fifty thousand dollars in the bank. That’s what it said, right there at the top of the list.

Lovely.

I killed my cigarette and looked across at her. Her face was expressionless, her eyes empty, her mouth neither smiling nor frowning. I wondered just where she fit in, whether she was lying or telling the truth, how she knew so much and what in the name of the Lord she was afraid of. There didn’t seem to be anything for her to worry about, for God’s sake. All she did was play patsy in an unassuming sort of a way, and even so she hadn’t done anything the least bit illegal.

And she was certainly afraid. You don’t throw a gun on a total stranger for the pure hell of it. She was scared green.

I wondered why.

“That’s it,” she said. “The whole bit from beginning to end. Now do you understand?”

“Almost. There’s one point I’m a little unclear on. Maybe you can straighten me out.”

Her eyebrows went up.

“The con game itself is easy enough to understand. It’s a new one on me but it makes sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

“You.”

She looked very puzzled.

“You,” I repeated. “For one thing, how in hell do you know all this if all they told you was the cover story? Secondly, what’s your part in the whole thing? Why aren’t you back cashing chips at West of the Lake or whatever the hell it is?”

She started laughing.

“Look, I—”

Loud laughter, her breasts rising and falling in a delicious sort of way, her eyes filling with tears. I guess the laughter was a valve opening up so that she could let off steam and ease some of the tension. I didn’t mind. If she wanted to laugh it was okay with me.

“Ted,” she said. “Oh my God.”

“Well?”

“I didn’t tell you that part,” she said. “The most important part of all and I left you in the dark.”

“So turn on the lights.”

“The most important part. The reason I’ve bothered telling you the whole thing, and I leave out the most important part of all. It’s silly.”

“Look, Cindy. Tell me.”

She smiled.

“Come on.”

“Could I have a cigarette?”

I gave her a cigarette.

“Light?”

I lit hers, then took one of my own.

“Ted,” she said, blowing out smoke. “Poor Ted. You don’t understand.”

“The suspense,” I said, “is killing me.”

“Ted,” she said. “I have the money in my room. In a little black satchel. All the money. Fifty thousand dollars in twenty dollar bills and it’s all mine!”

I did not take it like a man. I took it like a low blow. I sagged in the middle, doubled up in something quite close to agony and flopped from my chair to the floor. I felt as though someone had run over me with a garbage scow. I know people don’t get run over with garbage scows, not unless they make a practice of swimming the East River. But that’s how I felt.

“I took it,” she said breathlessly. “We all met in the hotel room and I got out of there with the money. The joke was on them — all the work they put into the job, and little Cindy Sims walked off with the boodle. The joke was sure as hell on them.”

“How?” I croaked.

“Just picked it up, picked it up and walked off with it. They never even suspected. Never tumbled to it for a minute. They thought I was some kind of a moron, a nice chick to have around the place but nothing to worry about. I guess they know better now, the bastards.”

“Wait,” I said. “Hold on a minute. How did you find out about it all?”

“It was easy, Ted. Too easy.”

“How?”

“Ed Reed,” she said. “The little bastard who worked on McGuire. The oily, slimy, slick-talking son of a bitch. He told me all about it.”

“Why in hell should he—”

“He was bragging, Ted. It made him feel like a big shot. He was a sucker the same way as McGuire was.”

“But why you?”

“Because I was sleeping with him.”

It hurt. It shouldn’t have hurt — she was just some lonely frail who had blown in out of the night, but still it hurt. I don’t know what I suspected — a virgin, maybe, although virginity had never been my particular kick. I won’t even try to analyze it. It hurt.

“It was horrible, Ted. He picked me up pretty skillfully and he was lots of fun at first — a big spender, a happy sort of a guy if you didn’t notice what went on behind the mask. Later I learned to notice. But not at first.

“Then, after the first trip to bed, he got ugly. He wanted me to do... unnatural things. Things I didn’t like. They make me sick to my stomach to think about them. You know the things fairies do to each other?”

I nodded.

“Those things. And worse. He wanted me to whip, him, to hurt him. It was all pretty sickening.”

“But you did it.”

She nodded. “By this time I knew the swindle. I already had my mind made up, Ted. I was getting my share. I was going to wind up with the dough.”

“And you did.”

“So I did.”

I looked at the bundle of innocence sitting on my bed and thought of the bundle of money in her room, thought of the cold blood under that warm exterior, of the mind and the body and the money and a few other things. I thought of what it must have been like with her and Reed in bed. It must have been pretty unpleasant for her, although it must have been pretty goddamned great for Reed, damn him. I envied him. I envied anybody who had something like Cinderella Sims in bed with him.

She would be good, damned good. I stared hard at her, saw the way the top half of her made a man’s flannel shirt stretch all out of shape, saw the way her behind was snug and tight in the dungarees.

And, evidently, there was something left that Rosie Ryan hadn’t managed to drain out of me altogether. Because I wanted Cindy, wanted her desperately, wanted her inside and out with a want that was more than mere sex, although there was sure as hell a lot of pure sex mixed in with whatever else was there. I wanted her and it must have shown in my eyes because I could read an answer in her eyes, an answer that said she knew what I was thinking.

“So you got the money,” I said. I didn’t particularly feel like talking but I forced it. “So you got the money. Where does the problem come in?”

“They’re after me.”

“The law?”

She shook her head. “As far as the law is concerned, no crime was ever committed. Nobody complained. McGuire certainly won’t complain.”

“The con mob?”

“Of course. They went to a lot of trouble for this one, spent one hell of a lot of money getting things set up properly. And they’re not the type of people who let their dough slide down the drain. That’s not the way they play. They’ll hound me forever and kill me if they get a chance. And I don’t particularly feel like dying, Ted. I’m too young for that.”

“Do they know where you are?”

“I don’t know. Reed has contacts everywhere. He’s got more connections than a plumber, the dirty son of a bitch. I thought you were one of his contacts when you spotted me. That’s why I had to come up and hold a gun on you. I almost killed you, almost shot you in the back. But I had to find out first whether or not you’d gotten in touch with Reed yet. It’s good I asked.”

“No kidding.”

“I think he knows I’m in New York. He knows me under another name — that’s why I went back to my old name here, Cinderella Sims. That’s not the name I was working under in Tahoe.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“No ideas at all?”

She shrugged. “Ideas are cheap. I had a million ideas at first and none of them panned out. I was going to jump the border for Mexico and stay there. He’d never even bother looking down there. I’d be safe.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

“I don’t know. God, from the minute I grabbed that money everything started to go wrong. I got to the airport and took the first flight out. It happened to go to New York. That’s why I’m here.”

“Why don’t you fly down to Mexico?”

“I waited too long. Now I’m sure they know I’m in New York. I’m scared stiff. I’ve been living here for a month now and I’ve been at five different addresses in that time. At first I stayed in a hotel but then I figured it was too easy to be seen that way. Now I’m living across the street. I won’t even go downtown, just stay in the neighborhood and keep in my room as much as I can. I don’t dare stay here for more than a week.”

“Because you might be spotted?”

She nodded soberly.

“It’s rough.”

“I’m scared,” she said. “I’ve never been afraid like this and every day it gets worse. It’s silly — fifty thousand dollars and I don’t even dare enjoy it. I can’t go shopping, can’t do anything. I just sit around and go out of my mind.”

I put out my cigarette.

“Ted,” she said. “Ted, I told you all this for a reason. I need help.”

“What kind of help?”

“I don’t even know. I just know I need somebody who can figure out a way for us to get clear with the money so that I don’t have to keep on running like this for the rest of my life. I can’t take much more of this. It’s wearing me down. I have trouble sleeping, it’s getting so bad.”

“You think I can help?”

“We stand a better chance with two of us. I won’t have to go out anymore, for one thing. And they don’t know you. That gives me a cover right there.”

I thought about it.

“I’ll give you half,” she said. “Twenty-five thousand, if we get out of this. It’s worth it to me. I just can’t stand the running any more. You get me out of this and half the money’s yours.”

I got up from the chair. My head was starting to reel a little and my feet weren’t quite as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar. But I made it over to the bed and sat down next to her.

I could smell her. She smelled as though she’d just had a bath, fresh and clean and sweet.

“Is it a deal, Ted?”

I thought about it. Twenty-five thousand dollars was one hell of a lot of money. I was buying trouble but the price seemed to be right.

Almost right, anyway.

“I want more,” I heard my self saying.

“Isn’t half enough? My God, Ted — that’s a lot of money. I want some left for myself.”

“The money’s fine. That’s not what I meant. I want what Eddie Reed was getting. I want you in bed.”

She looked up at me and her eyes were shiny with laughter. “Ted,” she said. “Ted, Ted, Ted. That part of it goes without saying.”

“When do we start?”

She grinned.

“Here we are,” she said, “and here’s a bed. It’s been a long time, Ted. Let’s seal the bargain.”

I reached for her.