What's Better Than Money (14 page)

He was pawing through a mass of papers, muttering under his breath. For a moment, he didn’t seem to have heard, then he looked up sharply.

“What was that?”

I leaned back in my desk chair and tried to look casual.

“I have to take a couple of days off. I want you to hold the fort.”

He stared at me as if he thought I had gone crazy.

“Hey! Wait a minute! You can’t do that! You can’t take time off now, Jeff! What are you thinking of! You have Kobey, Max Stone, Crombie and Cousins lined up for appointments, haven’t you? I want those estimates for the steel today. You can’t take time off now!”

“I’m sorry, but I have to. This is very urgent private business.”

His jovial face suddenly turned hard and flushed brick red.

“I don’t give a damn how urgent it is! We’re building a bridge and we have a time limit! To hell with your urgent and private business! You’ve got to stay right here and do your job as I’m doing mine!”

“But I have to go, Jack.”

He ran his hand over his balding head, staring at me. Slowly, the flush died down and into his alert eyes came a quizzing, shrewd expression.

“What’s up then?”

“Personal trouble,” I said woodenly, not looking at him. “It’s important to Sarita and me.”

He moved papers about on his desk, frowning, then he said, “I’m sorry I blew up. I’m sorry too to hear you have trouble. Let’s put our cards on the table, Jeff. You and I are partners. We have put our money in this firm and we’re in it together. We have landed the biggest job the City can offer us. If we fall down on it, we’re cooked. Make no mistake about that. I don’t know what your trouble is, but I’m reminding you this job represents my future as well as yours. If you miss these appointments, we’ll lose five working days. There’s no two ways about that. If Mathison takes it into his head to telephone and finds you’re not at your desk, he’ll hit the ceiling. I’m making an issue of this, Jeff, because neither of us can nor should take a minute off for at least two months.” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Well, I’ve said my piece. It’s up to you what you do. If you take time off now, the bridge will be five days late, and we will have fallen down on the job, and we won’t get any more jobs like this one. I know it, and nothing you say will alter the facts.”

I knew he was right. I felt a murderous impulse go through me as I realised that Rima must have counted on this, had counted on me being chained to Holland City so she could hide herself away in her own time and with the confidence that once she was hidden, I could never find her.

I hesitated for a long moment, then I gave up. I had to think of Jack and the bridge even if it meant sacrificing myself. I would have to wait. It would make the hunt for Rima much more difficult and I stood to lose my second ten thousand dollars, but I had no alternative.

“Okay, forget it,” I said. “I’m sorry to have brought it up.”

“Sorry – hell! You’ve got to stay here, Jeff, or we’ll be sunk! Now we have that little item off our chests, what’s the trouble? You and I are partners. I’m not that stupid I can’t see by looking at you that there is something badly wrong. It’s a good thing to share bad things: share this with me.”

I very nearly told him, but I stopped in time.

My only way out of this mess was to find and silence Rima. I couldn’t bring Jack into it. This was something I had to do on my own. I would be making him an accessory to murder.

“It’s something I have to handle myself,” I said, looking away from him. “Thanks all the same.”

“That’s up to you,” he said and I could see he was hurt and worried. “I won’t press it. I want to put on record that if you want help, financial or otherwise, I’m here. I’m your partner. What concerns you, concerns me. Understand?”

“Thanks, Jack.”

We looked at each other, slightly embarrassed, then he got to his feet and began collecting his papers.

“Well, I’ve got to get going. I have a couple of guys waiting for me right now.”

When he had gone, I took out my cheque book and wrote a cheque for ten thousand dollars in favour of Rima Marshall. I put the cheque in an envelope, addressed it to the Los Angeles bank and put it in my Out-tray. Then I “phoned my bank and told them to sell my bonds.

I was caught, but I was still determined to find Rima if I could before I parted with any more money. If I really got down to the job and worked practically non-stop, I could gain a few days breathing space. I had three weeks in which to clear my desk, and to get so far ahead with my work I could afford a few days off: three weeks before the second payment was due.

I went to work.

I doubt if any man at any time has ever slaved harder than I did during the next two weeks. I worked like a crazy man.

I was at my desk at half-past five in the morning and I worked through until past midnight. During those two weeks, I scarcely said more than a dozen words to Sarita. I left her asleep, and on my return found her in bed. I drove my contractors nearly out of their minds. I turned poor Clara into a thin, sunken-eyed automaton. I got so far ahead with my work that Jack couldn’t keep pace with me.

“For the love of Mike!” he exploded after the twelfth day, “we’re not finishing this goddam bridge next week! Ease off, will you? My boys are going nuts under this pressure!”

“Let them go nuts!” I said. “I have everything buttoned up on my side, and I’m taking three days off from tomorrow. By the time I get back, you should have caught up. Have you any complaints if I take three days off?”

Jack lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“I’d welcome it! Seriously, Jeff, I’ve never seen anyone work the way you have worked these last two weeks. You have earned your days off. Okay, go wherever you want to, but there is just one thing: if you are in as bad a spot as I think you must be, I want to share it with you.”

“I can handle it,” I said. “Thanks all the same.”

I got home around eleven o’clock: the first time I had been reasonably early for two weeks. Sarita was preparing for bed as I walked into the apartment.

She had got over her disappointment about the cottage by now, and we were more or less on the usual terms: perhaps not quite, but close enough. I knew she had been watching the way I had been working, and it had been worrying her.

I was feeling pretty knocked out, but knowing that at last I was going on the hunt for Rima kept me going.

“I’m leaving for New York tomorrow first thing,” I said. “There are a number of things I have to take care of, and I’ll be away for three or four days. I’ve got to get a lower estimate for a bunch of items to do with the bridge, and New York is the only place where I’ll get what I want.”

She came to me and put her arms around me.

“You’re killing yourself, Jeff. Surely you don’t have to work this hard?”

She looked up at me, her brown eyes worried.

“It’ll ease off. It’s been tough, but I had to clear my desk before I could make this trip.”

“Darling, could I go with you? I haven’t been to New York for years. I’d love it. We could meet after your business dates, and while you are tied up, I could look around the shops.”

Why I hadn’t thought that she would want to come with me I can’t imagine. It was the most obvious thing she would suggest. For a long, painful moment I stared at her, not able to think up an excuse to put her off. Maybe I said all I need to have said by looking at her like this. I saw the excitement die out of her eyes and her face fell.

“I’m sorry,” she said and turned away and began to straighten the cushions on the settee. “Of course you won’t want me around. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry I mentioned it.”

I drew in a long slow breath. I hated seeing her look like this. I hated to hurt her as I knew I had hurt her.

“It just so happens, Sarita, I will be tied up morning, noon and night. I’m sorry, too, but I think it would be better if you stayed here this trip. Next trip will be different.”

“Yes.” She moved across the room. “Well, I guess we had better go to bed.”

It wasn’t until I had turned off the light and we were isolated in our twin beds that she said out of the darkness, “Jeff, what are we going to do with our money? Anything?”

If I didn’t find her and kill her, we were going to give our money to Rima, but I didn’t tell Sarita this.

“We’re going to build a place of our own,” I said, but there was no confidence in my voice. “We’re going to have some fun as soon as I get all this work behind me.”

“Jack has bought a Thunderbird,” Sarita said. “He has paid out twelve thousand dollars to redecorate and furnish his apartment. What have we done with our share of the money?”

“Never mind about Jack. He’s a bachelor and he doesn’t have to worry about his future. I’ve got to be sure you are taken care of if anything happened to me.”

“Does that mean I shall have to wait until you are dead or we are old before spending a dime of it?”

“Now, look. . .” The irritation in my voice sounded harsh even to me. “We’ll spend the money. . .”

“I’m sorry. I was only asking. It seems odd that you should make sixty thousand dollars, and yet we still live the same way, still wear the same clothes, never go anywhere, never do anything, and I can’t even go to New York with you. I suppose I’m being unreasonable, but for the life of me I can’t see why you are working like a slave day in and night out and neither of us are having any fun out of it.”

I felt a hot rush of blood to my head. Goaded beyond endurance, I lost control of my temper.

“For Heaven’s sake, Sarita,” I yelled at her. “Stop this! I’m trying to build a bridge! I haven’t even got the money yet! We’ll spend it when I’ve got it!”

There was a pause, then she said in a cold, shocked voice, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to irritate you.”

Then followed a deadly silence. It went on and on. We both knew the other was awake, unable to sleep, worried and bitterly hurt.

The shadowy ghost of Rima stood between our beds, pushing us apart, threatening our happiness.

I had to find her.

I had to rid myself of her.

II

I arrived at Los Angeles Airport a little after one o’clock and took a taxi to the Pacific and Union Bank.

Every spare moment, and they were few, that I had had during the past two weeks, I had wracked my brains as to how I was to get the address of Rima’s other bank. It was certain the Pacific and Union would have a record of the address, and my first move was to try to find out how and where this record was kept.

As I paid off the taxi, I was relieved to see that the bank was a big one. I had feared it might have been a small branch affair with only a few staff who would remember me. But this was a vast building with a commissionaire on the door, and a continuous flow of customers going in and out.

I walked into the big reception hall. On either side were the grills behind which stood the tellers. At every station was a small group of people, waiting. Around and behind these stations was a gallery where I could see clerks busy with calculating machines, duplicators and such like. At the far end of the hall I could see the glass cages for the bank officers.

I walked to one of the grills and got behind the short queue. Murmuring apologies, I reached over and took a pay-in slip from the rack. From my wallet I took ten five dollar bills. After a few minutes, there was only one customer ahead of me and I could reach the counter. I wrote in bold block letters at the head of the pay-in slip
Rita Marschal
, and at the foot of the slip, I wrote: paid in by
John Hamilton
.

The man in front of me moved away and I pushed the ten five dollar bills and the pay-in slip under the grill.

The teller took the slip, lifted his rubber stamp, then paused and frowned. He glanced up at me.

I was leaning against the counter, staring away from him, my face expressionless.

“I don’t think this is correct, sir,” he said to me.

I turned and stared at him.

“What do you mean?”

He hesitated, looked again at the pay-in slip, then said, “If you will wait a moment. . .”

It was working out the way I had hoped it would. He took the slip and leaving his station, he walked briskly down the long counter to the stairs that led up to the gallery. I stood back so I could watch him. He went up the stairs and along the gallery to where a girl was sitting at a big machine. He spoke to her. She swung around in her chair to a big card that hung on the wall. I watched her run her ringer down what seemed a list of names, then she turned to the machine, pressed buttons, and after a moment, she reached forward and then gave the teller a card.

My heart was thumping.

I knew then that she had operated an automatic Finding and Filing machine which could produce the card containing particulars of any client by pressing numbered keys: each client having his or her own particular number.

When the keys were pressed, the card would be shot into a tray.

I watched the teller study the card and then my pay-in slip. He gave the card to the girl and then hurried back to me.

“There is some mistake here, sir,” he said. “We have no account in this name. Are you sure you have the name right?”

I shrugged my shoulders impatiently.

“I wouldn’t swear to it. This happens to be a bridge debt. I was playing against Miss Marschal and I lost. I hadn’t my cheque book with me. I promised to pay what I owe her into this bank. I understand she doesn’t bank here, but you look after any money paid in.”

He stared at me.

“That is right, sir, if it’s the client we deal with, but her name isn’t Marschal. It wouldn’t be Rima Marshall. The name having no ‘c’ and two ‘lls’?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “Maybe I had better check.” Then very casually, I went on, “I don’t happen to have her address. Maybe you can give it to me?”

He took that without a blink.

“If you will address your letter care of the bank, sir, we’ll be happy to forward it.”

I was pretty sure he would say exactly that, but all the same, I was disappointed.

“I’ll do that. Thanks.”