The Complete Crime Stories (36 page)

Down there was about the evilest-looking thing you ever saw in your life. It was one of these ground spiders you see out here in California, about the size of a tarantula and just about as dangerous. It was about three inches long, I would say, and was walking toward me with a clumsy gait but getting there all the time. I raised my foot to step on it, and she gave another squeal and said if I squashed it she'd die. By that time they were all standing around—Snelling, Sheila, and Adler. Snelling said get a piece of paper and throw it out the door, and Sheila said yes, for heaven's sake do something about it quick. Adler took a piece of paper off my desk, and rolled it into a funnel, and then took a pen and pushed the thing into the paper, Then he folded the funnel shut and we all went out and watched him dump the spider into the gutter. Then a cop came along and borrowed the funnel and caught it again and said he was going to take it home to his wife, so they could take pictures of it with their home movie camera.

We went back in the bank, and Snelling and I closed the vault, and he went. Church went. Adler went back for his last tour around before closing. That left me alone with Sheila. I stepped back to where she was by the lockers, looking in the mirror while she put on her hat. “Well?”

“It's all done.”

“You put back the cash.”

“To the last cent.”

“The cards are all in?”

“It all checks to the last decimal point.”

That was what I'd been praying for, for the last month, and yet as soon as I had it, it took me about one-fifth of a second to get sore, about Brent.

“Is he driving you home?”

“If so, he didn't mention it.”

“Suppose you wait in my car. There's a couple of things I want to talk to you about. It's just across the street.”

She went, and Adler changed into his street clothes, and he and I locked up, and I bounced over to the car. I didn't head for her house, I headed for mine, but I didn't wait till we got there before I opened up.

“Why didn't you tell me he was back?”

“Were you interested?”

“Yeah, plenty.”

“Well, since you ask me, I didn't know he was back—when I left you last night. He was there waiting for me when I got in. Today, I haven't had one minute to talk to you, or anybody.”

“I thought he was due to spend a month up there.”

“So did I.”

“Then what's he doing back?”

“I haven't the faintest idea. Trying to find out what's going to happen to him, perhaps. Tomorrow, you may recall, you'll check the cash, and he knows it. That may account for why he cut his recuperation short.”

“Are you sure he didn't have a date with you, now he's feeling better? To be waiting for you after you said goodnight to me?”

“I stayed with the children, if that's what you mean.”

I don't know if I believed any of that or not. I think I told you I was nuts about her, and all the money she'd cost me, and all the trouble she'd brought, only seemed to make it worse. The idea that she'd spent a night in the same house with him, and hadn't said anything to me about it, left me with a prickly feeling all over. Since I'd been going around with her, it was the first time that part of it had come up. He'd been in the hospital, and from there he'd gone right up to the lake, so in a way up to then he hadn't seemed real. But he seemed real now, all right, and I was still as sore as a bear when we got to my house, and went in. Sam lit the fire, and she sat down, but I didn't. I kept marching around the room, and she smoked, and watched me.

“All right, this guy's got to be told.”

“He will be.”

“He's got to be told
everything.”

“Dave, he'll be told, he'll be told everything, and a little more even than you know he's going to be told—when I'm ready to tell him.”

“What's the matter with now?”

“I'm not equal to it.”

“What's that—a stall?”

“Will you sit down for a moment?”

“All right, I'm sitting.”

“Here—beside me.”

I moved over beside her, and she took my hand and looked me in the eyes. “Dave, have you forgotten something?”

“Not that I know of.”

“I think you have. … I think you've forgotten that today we finished what we started to do. That, thanks to you, I don't have to lie awake every night staring at the ceiling, wondering whether my father is going to be ruined, my children are going to be ruined—to say nothing of myself. That you've done something for me that was so dangerous to you I hate to think what would have happened if something had gone wrong. It would have wrecked your career, and it's such a nice, promising career. But it wasn't wrong, Dave. It was wonderfully right. It was decenter than any man I know of would have done, would even have thought of doing. And now it's done. There's not one card, one comma, one missing penny to show—and I can sleep, Dave. That's all that matters to me today.”

“O.K.—then you're leaving him.”

“Of course I am, but—”

“You're leaving him tonight. You're coming in here, with your two kids, and if that bothers you, then I'll move out. We're going over there now, and—”

“We're doing nothing of the kind.”

“I'm telling you—”

“And I'm telling
you!
Do you think I'm going over there now, and starting a quarrel that's going to last until three o'clock in the morning and maybe until dawn? That's going to wander all over the earth, from how horribly he says I've treated him to who's going to have the children—the way I feel now? I certainly shall not. When I'm ready, when I know exactly what I'm going to say, when I've got the children safely over to my father's, when it's all planned and I can do it in one terrible half hour—then I'll do it. In the meantime, if he's biting his fingernails, if he's frightened to death over what's going to happen to him—that's perfectly all right with me. A little of that won't hurt him. When it's all done, then I go at once to Reno, if you still want me to, and then my life can go on. … Don't you know what I'm trying to tell you, Dave? What you're worried about just couldn't happen. Why—he hasn't even looked at me that way in over a year. Dave, tonight I want to be happy. With you. That's all.”

I felt ashamed of myself at that, and took her in my arms, and that catch came in my throat again when she sighed, like some child, and relaxed, and closed her eyes.

“Sheila?”

“Yes?”

“We'll celebrate.”

“All right.”

So we celebrated. She phoned her maid, and said she'd be late, and we went to dinner at a downtown restaurant, and then we drove to a night club on Sunset Boulevard. We didn't talk about Brent, or the shortage, or anything but ourselves, and what we were going to do with our lives together. We stayed till about one o'clock. I didn't think of Brent again till we pulled up near her house, and then this same prickly feeling began to come over me. If she noticed anything she didn't say so. She kissed me good-night, and I started home.

VII

I turned in the drive, put the car away, closed the garage, and walked around to go in the front way. When I started for the door I heard my name called. Somebody got up from a bench under the trees and walked over. It was Helm. “Sorry to be bothering you this hour of night, Mr. Bennett, but I've got to talk to you.”

“Well, come in.”

He seemed nervous as I took him inside. I offered him a drink, but he said he didn't want anything. He sat down and lit a cigarette, and acted like he didn't know how to begin. Then: “Have you seen Sheila?”

“… Why?”

“I saw you drive off with her.”

“Yes—I had some business with her. We had dinner together. I—just left her a little while ago.”

“Did you see Brent?”

“No. It was late. I didn't go in.”

“She say anything about him?”

“I guess so. Now and then. … What's this about?”

“Did you see him leave the bank? Today?”

“He left before you did.”

“Did you see him leave the second time?”

“… He only came in once.”

He kept looking at me, smoking and looking at me. He was a young fellow, twenty-four or -five, I would say, and had only been with us a couple of years. Little by little he was losing his nervousness at talking with me.

“… He went in there twice.”

“He came in once. He rapped on the door, Adler let him in, he stood there talking a few minutes, then he went back to get some stuff out of his locker. Then he left. You were there. Except for the extra tellers, nobody had finished up yet. He must have left fifteen minutes before you did.”

“That's right. Then I left. I finished up, put my cash box away, and left. I went over to the drugstore to get myself a malted milk, and was sitting there drinking it when he went in.”

“He couldn't have. We were locked, and—”

“He used a key.”

“… When was this?”

“A little after four. Couple of minutes before you all come out with that spider and dumped it in the gutter.”

“So?”

“I didn't see him come out.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I haven't seen you. I've been looking for you.”

“You saw me drive off with Sheila.”

“Yeah, but it hadn't occurred to me, at the time. That cop, after he caught the spider, came in the drugstore to buy some film for his camera. I helped him put the spider in an ice-cream container, and punch holes in the top, and I wasn't watching the bank all that time. Later, it just happened to run through my head that I'd seen all the rest of you leave the bank, but I hadn't seen Brent. I kept telling myself to forget it, that I'd got a case of nerves from being around money too much, but then—”

“Yeah? What else?”

“I went to a picture tonight with the Snellings.”

“Didn't Snelling see him leave?”

“I didn't say anything to Snelling. I don't know what he saw. But the picture had some Mexican stuff in it, and later, when we went to the Snellings' apartment, I started a bum argument, and got Snelling to call Charlie to settle it. Brent spent some time in Mexico once. That was about twelve o'clock.”

“And?”

“The maid answered. Charlie wasn't there.”

We looked at each other, and both knew that twelve o'clock was too late for a guy to be out that had just had a bad operation.

“Come on.”

“You calling Sheila?”

“We're going to the bank.”

The protection service watchman was due on the hour, and we caught him on his two o'clock round. He took it as a personal insult that we would think anybody could be in the bank without him knowing it, but I made him take us in there just the same, and we went through every part of it. We went upstairs, where the old records were stored, and I looked behind every pile. We went down in the basement and I looked behind every gas furnace. We went all around back of the windows and I looked under every counter. I even looked behind my desk, and under it. That seemed to be all. The watchman went up and punched his clock and we went out on the street again. Helm kind of fingered his chin.

“Well, I guess it was a false alarm.”

“Looks like it.”

“Sorry.”

“It's all right. Report everything.”

“Guess there's no use calling Sheila.”

“Pretty late, I'm afraid.”

What he meant was, we ought to call Sheila, but he wanted me to do it. He was just as suspicious as he ever was, I could tell that from the way he was acting. Only the watchman was sure we were a couple of nuts. We got in the car, and I took him home, and once more he mumbled something about Sheila, but I decided not to hear him. When I let him out I started for home, but as soon as I was out of sight I cut around the block and headed for Mountain Drive.

A light was on, and the screen door opened as soon as I set my foot on the porch. She was still dressed, and it was almost as though she had been expecting me. I followed her in the living room, and spoke low so nobody in the house could hear us, but I didn't waste any time on love and kisses.

“Where's Brent?”

“… He's in the vault.”

She spoke in a whisper, and sank into a chair without looking at me, but every doubt I'd had about her in the beginning, I mean, every hunch that she'd been playing me for a sucker, swept back over me so even looking at her made me tremble. I had to lick my lips a couple of times before I could even talk. “Funny you didn't tell me.”

“I didn't know it.”

“What do you mean you didn't know it? If you know it now, why didn't you know it then? You trying to tell me he stepped out of there for a couple of minutes, borrowed my telephone, and called you up? He might as well be in a tomb as be in that place, till it opens at eight-thirty this morning.”

“Are you done?”

“I'm still asking you why you didn't tell me.”

“When I got in, and found he wasn't home, I went out looking for him. Or at any rate, for the car. I went to where he generally parks it—when he's out. It wasn't there. Coming home I had to go by the bank. As I went by, the red light winked, just once.”

I don't know if you know how a vault works. There's two switches inside. One lights the overhead stuff that you turn on when somebody wants to get into his safe deposit box; the other works the red light that's always on over the door in the daytime. That's the danger signal, and any employee of the bank always looks to see that it's on whenever he goes inside. When the vault is closed the light's turned off, and I had turned it off myself that afternoon, when I locked the vault with Snelling. At night, all curtains are raised in the bank, so cops, watchman, and passersby can see inside. If the red light went on, it would show, but I didn't believe she'd seen it. I didn't believe she'd even been by the bank. “So the red light winked, hey? Funny it wasn't winking when I left there not ten minutes ago.”