Ed McBain - Cinderella

“Low,” she said.

“Can we talk about this in person?”

“No.”

“It would be good to see you face-to-face.”

“When we deliver. First I need a price. So does Mr. K. He’s in for seven-and-a-half finder’s.”

“We?”

“What?”

“Who’s we?”

“My partner and me.”

“Who is your partner?”

“Who’s your partner?” she said, and hung up.

She pressed one of the receiver-rest buttons, got a dial tone, and called the Springtime again. When Klement came on the line, she said, “What is this? A setup?”

“What?” he said. “No. What?”

“Your people are asking too many questions. I want a price and no more questions.”

“How much are you really looking for?” Klement asked.

“With no bullshitting back and forth?”

“Your best price.”

“Sixty-five. With no haggling.”

“I’ll tell them.”

“Times four. Less your seven and a half.”

“I understand.”

“I want to close this five minutes from now.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

She called him back five minutes later.

“They’ve agreed to your price,” he said. “They’re waiting for your call.”

The rain started so suddenly it caught everyone on the deck by surprise. One moment there was sunshine and then all at once raindrops were spattering everywhere. The outdoor diners grabbed for drinks and handbags, sharing for a moment the camaraderie of people caught in either a catastrophe or an unexpected delight. There were cries of surprise and some laughter and the sound of chairs scraping back and a great deal of scurrying until the deck — within moments, it seemed — was clear of everything but the empty tables with their white cloths flapping in the wind, and the empty chairs standing stoically in the falling rain.

The rain came in off the water in long gray sheets.

Susan said, “I’m soaked.”

She looked marvelous. Summery yellow dress scooped low over her breasts, cinched tightly at the waist, flaring out over her hips. Not quite soaked, but her face and hair wet with rain, a wide grin on her mouth.

Waiters were bustling about, showing diners to tables inside. There was the buzz of excited conversation, everyone marveling at how swiftly and unexpectedly the rain had come.

“It reminds me of something,” Matthew said.

“Yes, me too ,” she said, and squeezed his hand.

“But I can’t remember what.”

“Mr. Hope?” the headwaiter said. “This way, please.”

He led them to a table close to the sliding glass doors. Outside, busboys were hurriedly gathering up glasses and silverware. The wind was fierce. The tablecloths kept flapping, as if clamoring for flight.

“Something in Chicago?” Susan said.

“Yes.”

“Something that made us laugh a lot?”

“Yes.”

“But what?”

“I don’t know. Is your drink okay?”

“I spilled half of it on the way in.”

He signaled to the waiter. The place was quieting down now. He kept trying to remember. Or was it something that had happened so many times that it had taken on the aspect of singularity?

The waiter took their order for another round.

Susan was silent for a moment.

Then she said, “We have to stop meeting this way,” and they both burst out laughing. “Truly, Matthew, this is absurd.”

“I know,” he said.

“I feel like I’m cheating on your wife ! That’s carrying Electra a bit far, don’t you think? You should have heard all the questions she had about why I was all dressed up and—”

“You look beautiful,” he said.

“Thank you, and where I was going, and who with, and—”

“What’d you tell her?”

“I said it was none of her business.”

“Wrong thing to say.”

“Oh, boy , was it! Off she went in a huff. How’d you know?”

“I said the same thing to her and got the same reaction.”

“Well, what should I have said? I mean, I think we’ve made the right decision about keeping this from her for a while...”

“Yes.”

“But at the same time I don’t want to lie...”

“No.”

“I guess I could have said I was meeting Peter downtown...”

“But he normally picks you up at the house, doesn’t he?”

“Well, yes.”

“And suppose he’d called while you were out?”

“Listen to the expert,” Susan said.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and the table went silent.

The silence lengthened.

She looked into her drink, eyes lowered.

“You hurt me very much, you know,” she said.

This was the first time she’d ever said anything about it. After that night of discovery there’d been no talk except through lawyers. And after the divorce all the conversation was about arrangements for Joanna, more often than not ending in one screaming contest or another. Now, meeting in secret so that Joanna would not know they were seeing each other — God, this was peculiar! — they seemed about to discuss it at last.

“Because I loved you very much,” she said.

Loved. Past tense.

“I loved you, too,” he said.

“But not very much, did you?” she said, and looked up and smiled wanly. “Otherwise there wouldn’t have been another woman.”

“I don’t know how that happened,” he said honestly.

“Was she the first one?”

Her eyes lowered again. Hand idly turning the stirrer in her drink.

“Yes.”

His eyes studying her face.

“I knew the marriage was in trouble,” Susan said, “but—”

“Even so, I shouldn’t have—”

“So many arguments—”

“Yes, but—”

“All the fun gone. We used to have such fun together, Matthew. Then, all at once...”

She looked up suddenly.

“What came first, Matthew? Did the fun stop before you met her? Or did the fun stop because you met her?”

“I remember only the pain,” he said.

She raised her eyebrows, surprised.

He did not know how he could explain that he could no longer remember the pleasure. Only mindless passion and pointless pain leading inexorably to more passion and more pain.

“I was dumb,” he said flatly.

Her eyes were steady on his face. She did not nod even minutely, there was nothing in her expression to indicate she’d been seeking this confession, this admission in public in a crowded dining room smelling faintly of wet garments while the rain lashed the windows and the white tablecloths turned sodden and gray, she had not led him to this point, this was not vindication time. She merely kept watching him.

“So what do we do now?” he asked.

“I guess we’ll have to see,” Susan said.

What Ernesto and Domingo figured was that they would have to see.

They were thinking there couldn’t be too many young girls in this city — she’d sounded young on the phone — who were in possession of four keys of cocaine, could there? That would have to be a remarkable coincidence, more than one girl with four keys of coke in her pocket? In a Mickey Mouse town like Calusa?

The trouble was, the girl didn’t want to meet them until it was buy time.

So how could they know for sure this was the girl El Armadillo wanted to hang from the ceiling until they showed up this Saturday with the money she wanted?

As they saw it, there were a lot of problems.

The first problem was that suppose this wasn’t the girl they were looking for?

They had agreed to pay her sixty-five a key for four keys, which came to $260,000. That was not a terrific bargain. It came nowhere near the excellence of the deal they had made with Jimmy Legs and Charlie Nubbs, whom they had agreed to pay only sixty a key for ten keys. That came to $600,000. But for ten keys, remember. Whereas for almost half that amount, they would be getting only four keys from the girl if she didn’t happen to be the girl they were looking for.