Lawrence Block - Enough Rope

“You said it was his poker night.”

“It is, but he might call me. Sometimes, too, he loses a lot of money in a hurry and comes home early, and in a foul mood, naturally.” She sighed, turned to look at him. “I wish it didn’t have to be secretive like this — hotel rooms, motels.”

“It can’t stay this way much longer.”

“Why not?”

Bruce Farr ran a hand through his wavy hair, groped for a cigarette, and lit it. “Inventory is scheduled in a month,” he said. “It won’t be ten minutes before they discover I’m into them up to the eyes. They’re a big firm, but a quarter of a million dollars worth of jewelry can’t be eased out of the vaults without someone noticing it sooner or later.”

“Did you take that much?”

He grinned. “That much,” he said, “a little at a time. I picked pieces no one would ever look for, but the inventory will show them gone. I made out beautifully on the sale, honey; peddled some of the goods outright and borrowed on the rest. Got a little better than a hundred thousand dollars, safely stowed away.”

“All that money,” she said. She pursed her lips as if to whistle. “A hundred thousand—”

“Plus change.” His smile spread and she thought how pleased he was with himself. Then he became serious. “Close to half the retail value. It went pretty well, Marcia, but we can’t sit on it. We have to get out, out of the country.”

“I know, but I’m afraid,” Marcia said.

“They won’t get us. Once we’re out of the country, we don’t have a thing to worry about. There are countries where you can buy yourself citizenship for a few thousand U.S. dollars, and beat extradition forever. They can’t get us.”

She was silent for a moment. When he took her hand and asked her what was wrong, she turned away, then met his eyes. “I’m not that worried about the police. If you say we can get away with it, well, I believe you.”

“Then what’s scaring you?”

“It’s Ray,” she said, and dropped her eyes. “Ray, my sweet loving husband. He’ll find us, darling. I know he will. He’ll find us, and he won’t care whether we’re citizens of Patagonia or Cambodia or wherever we go. He won’t try to extradite us. He’ll—” her voice broke, “he’ll kill us,” she finished.

“How can he find us? And what makes you think—”

She was shaking her head. “You don’t know him.”

“I don’t particularly want to. Honey—”

“You don’t know him,” she repeated. “I do. I wish I didn’t, I wish I’d never met him. I’m one of his possessions, I belong to him, and he wouldn’t let me get away from him, not in a million years. He knows all kinds of people, terrible people. Criminals, gangsters.” She gnawed her lip. “Why do you think I never left him? Why do you think I stay with him? Because I know what would happen if I didn’t. He’d find me, one way or another, and he’d kill me, and—”

She broke. His arms went around her and held her, comforted her.

“I’m not giving you up,” he said, “and he won’t kill us. He won’t kill either of us.”

“You don’t know him.” Panic rose in her voice. “He’s vicious, ruthless. He—”

“Suppose we kill him first, Marcia?”

He had to go over it with her a long time before she would even listen to him. They had to leave the country anyway. Neither of them was ready to spend a lifetime, or part of it, in jail. Once they were out they could stay out. So why not burn an extra bridge on the way? If Ray was really a threat to them, why not put him all the way out of the picture?

“Besides,” he told her, “I’d like to see him dead. I really would. For months now you’ve been mine, yet you always have to go home to him.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” she said.

“You wouldn’t have to do a thing, baby. I’d take care of everything.”

She nodded, got to her feet. “I never thought of — murder,” she said. “Is this how murders happen? When ordinary people get caught up over their heads? Is that how it starts?”

“We’re not ordinary people, Marcia. We’re special. And we’re not in over our heads. It’ll work.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said. “I’ll — I’ll think about it.”

Marcia called Brucetwo days later. She said, “Do you remember what we were talking about? We don’t have a month anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ray surprised me last night. He showed me a pair of airline tickets for Paris. We’re set to fly in ten days. Our passports are still in order from last year’s trip. I couldn’t stand another trip with him, dear. I couldn’t live through it.”

“Did you think about—”

“Yes, but this is no time to talk about it,” she said. “I think I can get away tonight.”

“Where and when?”

She named a time and place. When she placed the receiver back in its cradle she was surprised that her hand did not tremble. So easy, she thought. She was deciding a man’s fate, planning the end of a man’s life, and her hand was as steady as a surgeon’s. It astonished her that questions of life and death could be so easily resolved.

She was a few minutes late that night. Bruce was waiting for her in front of a tavern on Randolph Avenue. As she approached, he stepped forward and took her arm.

“We can’t talk here,” he said. “I don’t think we should chance being seen together. We can drive around. My car’s across the street.”

He took Claibourne Drive out to the east end of town. She lit a cigarette with the dashboard lighter and smoked in silence. He asked her what she had decided.

“I tried not to think about it,” she told him. “Then last night he sprang this jaunt on me, this European tour. He’s planning on spending three weeks over there. I don’t think I could endure it.”

“So?”

“Well, I got this wild idea. I thought about what you said, about — about killing him...”

“Yes?”

She drew a breath, let it out slowly. “I think you’re right. We have to kill him. I’d never rest if I knew he was after us. I’d wake up terrified in the middle of the night. I know I would. So would you.”

He didn’t say anything. His eyes were on hers and he clasped her hands.

“I guess I’m a worrier. I’d worry about the police, too. Even if we managed to do what you said, to buy our way out of extradition. The things you read, I don’t know. I’d hate to feel like a hunted animal for the rest of my life. I’d rather have the police hunting me than Ray, but even so, I don’t think I’d like it.”

“So?”

She lit another cigarette. “It’s probably silly,” she said. “I thought there might be a way to keep them from looking for you, and to get rid of him at the same time. Last night it occurred to me that you’re about his build. About six-one, aren’t you?”

“Just about.”

“That’s what I thought. You’re younger, and you’re much better looking than he is, but you’re both about the same height and weight. And I thought — Oh, this is silly!”

“Keep going.”

“Oh, this is the kind of crazy thing you see on television. I don’t know what kind of a mind I must have to think of it. But I thought that you could leave a note. You’d go to sleep at your house, then get up in the middle of the night and leave a long note explaining how you stole jewelry from your company and lost the money gambling and kept stealing more money and getting in deeper and deeper until there’s no way out. And that you’re doing the only thing you can do, that you’ve decided, well, to commit suicide.”

“I thing I’m beginning to get it.”

Her eyes lowered. “It doesn’t make any sense, does it?”