followed, swarming over him, wild now, my breath sobbing in my throat. I located his face at last, and swung. He jerked. I held him by the collar and swung again.

I snatched up the light, my hands shaking and dropped it. I clawed it up out of the sand again and flashed it in his face. He was out cold. I ran to the patrol car, jerked the keys out, and threw them far away in the darkness. I heaved the flashlight after them, lunged toward my own car, and fled.

I’d got away from him, but I was just buying time. And there wasn’t much more to buy. They would know now that I was here in town.

But even as I gunned the car wildly along the beach in the darkness, I was conscious that my mind was clearing, becoming colder now, and I could think.

An idea began to take shape. I could still win. I could get that money, all of it. I’d beat her yet.

And the way to beat her was to let her think she had won.

It was after five and the sky was reddening in the east when I parked the car a block away from the apartment on a cross street. No one saw me go in. I ran up the stairs. This was the last day. Only a few more hours now and we’d be gone.

No, I thought. I’d be gone.

She was in the bedroom. I put on a pot of coffee and went into the bath. I took a shower, as hot as I could stand it and then as cold as it would run, shocking myself awake.

I went into the kitchen. The coffee was almost done. I poured two quick drinks of the whisky and downed them. They burned through five days’ accumulation of exhaustion and fear and numbness, clearing my mind. I poured a cup of coffee and lit a cigarette.

I waited. There was no use waking her up. The banks wouldn’t open until ten.

At a little after seven I heard her in the bath. In a few minutes she came out. She was wearing the blouse and skirt again. It was odd that with that traveling case she hadn’t grabbed up two changes while she was at it.

“Good morning,” she said sweetly. “Did you sleep well?”

I walked over in front of her. “Have you got those names figured out yet?”

She gave me a teasing, half-mocking smile. “I’m not absolutely certain—”

I caught her by the shoulders and shook her. “Have you?”

“What is the hurry, dear? We have the rest of the month.”

I turned away from her without a word and walked over to the stove. I poured her a cup of coffee and another for myself. We sat down.

I lit her cigarette. “All right,” I said harshly. “You win. What do you want?”

Her eyebrows lifted. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” I said. “You wore me out. I can’t take it any longer. We’ve got to get out. They’re closing in on me.” I lit my own cigarette and dropped the match in the tray. Then I looked back at her face. “You know they’re looking for me instead of you, don’t you?”

She nodded. “I suspected it.”

“All right. I thought I could wait you out. But I can’t. I’ve taken the heat for four days but I can’t take it any longer. One of ‘em almost got me out there on the beach two hours ago, and I’ve had it. We’ve got to get out.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. Then she added, “But excuse me for interrupting you. I believe you had something else to say, didn’t you?”

“All right,” I said savagely. “I did. How much do you want? Half? Don’t go any higher than that, because I’ve still got one thing in my favor. I’ve got the keys, and if I don’t get half nobody gets anything.”

She leaned back a little in the chair and smiled. “That sounds eminently fair to me. But did it ever occur to you that possibly there was another facet to it, aside from the money? Remember? It was something I told you.”

“What?”

“That I have a deep-seated aversion to being played for a fool. You could have saved yourself all this if you’d told me the news to begin with.”

Everybody who wanted to believe that could line up on the right. But I went along with her.

“Well, I’m sorry,” I said. “But that’s all past now. So the fifty-fifty split is O.K. with you?”

She