puffed-up face. “A real neat package,” he said. “Isn’t it, pal?”
* * *
The long, hot Saturday afternoon was an endless hell of sitting at the desk looking at papers I didn’t even see while everything tumbled around me. The finishing touch had come at noon, when I picked Gloria up to take her to lunch. One glance at her face was all it took. He’d been to see her too. We sat in a booth in the crowded restaurant, unable to talk about it for fear of being overheard, while we looked at the ruin of everything we had planned. She couldn’t know what he’d told me, and I didn’t say anything about it, but she didn’t have to to understand the spot we were in. All that mattered was that he was back again for more and all our bright ideas for getting the books straightened out by November or any other time were shot to hell. I tried to cheer her up, but it was useless.
I’d see her that night, but what was the use? What could I say? That he’d promised to leave, and go to California? That was too stupid to repeat. There was a fat chance he’d go off and leave a gravy-train like this. This was just the opening wedge. He’d stick around until he got it all, and then he’d stay right on, milking both of us for what we made or what we had to steal to keep his big mouth shut.
Why had he waited all this time? I couldn’t even figure that out. I shuffled unseen papers in the heat, thinking, going around and around in the same smooth rut from which there was no escape. I hadn’t even got to the worst part of it yet. Suppose he got the money. Suppose he got all of it. That still wasn’t it. It was what was going to happen the minute he got his hands on it. He’d start throwing it around, making a big show around the beer joints and pool halls, and that was exactly what that cold-eyed Sheriff was waiting for, some citizen with too much sudden prosperity. They’d pick him up, and to get out from under he’d tell ‘em where he got it. So in paying him off to keep out of jail, I’d just be buying a one-way ticket right into the place.
I picked her up a little after seven and we drove out into the country and parked the car on a side road. I held her in my arms for a long time, not talking, and at last she stirred a little and looked up at me so hopelessly it was like a knife turning inside me.
“He wanted five hundred dollars,” she said.
“Did you give it to him ? “
“Not yet,” she said dully. “I told him we didn’t have it in the safe, and the bank was closed.”
“Good,” I said. “We’ll think of something.”
“We have to, Harry,” she said. “He said he’d go away. He said he was going out west. If we give it to him, maybe he’ll stay away.”
I wasn’t thinking, or I’d have kept my big mouth shut. “Like hell he will. Blackmailers are all the same. Every bite is always the last—until the next one.”
“I know. But what can we do? He might go.”
“He won’t. And we won’t get anywhere by paying him. The thing to do is stop him.”
“But how?” she asked frantically. Then she thought of something. “Harry, did you do that to his face? I never saw anything so—so horrible.”
“Yes,” I said. “I won’t lie to you. I did it. And a fat lot of good it did.”
“I hate that sort of thing, Harry. You won’t do it again, will you?”
“All right. It didn’t do any good, anyway.”
“We’ll just have to give him what he wants, and hope he’ll leave.”
“He’ll never leave if you give him what he wants,” I said.
“Then you don’t want me to give him the money?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “Don’t give him anything till I tell you to.”
“What are you going to do, Harry?”
“I don’t know yet, baby. I just don’t know.”
“Darling, please tell me why you don’t want to give it to him. Isn’t that the best thing to do?”
“It’s the very worst thing we could do. The way to get a blackmailer off your back is to stop him, not pay him.”
“What do you mean? How can we stop him?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “But you just