met.

“I’ve come a long way after that money,” I said. “I’ve taken a lot of chances. I want it. So don’t get in my way. I’m not playing any more.”

I reached down and caught her by the throat. She didn’t fight. She knew the futility of that. The eyes stared at me with their cool disdain.

I intended only to frighten her. But it began to get out of control. I tightened the hands. She’d try to cheat me out of it, would she, the mocking, arrogant, double-crossing little witch?

The room swam around me. She was beating at my arms, trying to reach my face. Make a fool of me, would she? I hated her. I wanted to kill her. My arms trembled; I could hear the roaring of wind in my throat.

Something snapped me out of it just in time. Some glimmer of sanity far back in my mind screamed at me to stop and made me let go of her throat before it was too late. I stood up, trying to control the wild trembling of my hands.

Good God, what had happened? I’d started to go crazy. I’d nearly killed her. And the only thing on earth that could save me if the police did catch me was the fact that she was still alive. And if I killed her I’d never get that money.

But I couldn’t let her know how it had scared me. I turned away and lit another cigarette. When I looked around again she was sitting up, struggling to get her breath.

I was all right now. “That give you an idea?” I asked.

She said nothing until she had recovered and completely regained her composure. She straightened her clothing.

“That’s the only language you speak, isn’t it?” she said at last.

“It’s one we both understand,” I said. “Think it over. Maybe you can remember how those names go.”

“I’ll probably get them straight, in time. But what’s the hurry? We have a whole month, don’t we?”

“I’ve changed my mind. This is too close to all those damned cops looking for you. I want to get farther away.”

“So you want me to go out on the street while my picture is still on the front pages? Considerate, aren’t you?”

“I tell you, we’ve got to get out of here!”

“And,” she went on calmly, “might I remind you of the terms of our agreement, Mr. Scarborough? You were to keep me hidden here for at least a month before I had to go out.”

“Listen,” I said, my voice beginning to grow loud. “I tell you—” Tell her what? That I was the one the police were looking for?

Maybe she was deliberately trying to drive me crazy.

Suddenly, from nowhere at all, I remembered what that blonde had said. “You’ll never get that money. You don’t know who you’re dealing with. Before it’s all over, one of you will kill the other.”

I wanted to jump up and run out in the street to get away from her before I went out of my mind and killed her.

Go out in the street? Where every cop in the state was looking for me and had my description?

Sit here, then, with those cool, inscrutable eyes watching me squirm, mocking me? Sit here, waiting hour after hour for the knock on the door that would be the first warning I’d ever have that Charisse Finley had remembered who I was at last?

Sit here and go slowly mad thinking of three safe-deposit boxes stuffed with fat bundles of money being held just out of my reach by this maddening witch?

How long before you broke?

* * *

After a while she went to bed.

I made a pot of coffee and watched the hours crawl around the face of the electric clock on the bookshelf. I began to imagine I could hear it. It made a tiny snoring sound. The ashtray filled up with butts. The room was blue with drifting layers of smoke.

I would sit still until my nerves were screaming; then I would walk the floor. Three or four times I heard sirens crying somewhere in the city and each time the breath would stop in my throat in spite of the fact that I knew if they came they wouldn’t be using sirens. On a thing like this they came quietly, covered the front and rear exits, and two of them came up and knocked on the door.

It was the elevator that was terrible. The apartment was only two doors away from it and I could hear it,