Ed McBain - Alice in Jeopardy

“Hi, Andy. What’d you find out?”

“Well, Garland is closed today, but I spoke to a man named Farris, at home, asked him if he knew anything further about a settlement on Eddie’s policy. I told him word had it that a check had already been sent out. He said as far as he knew the matter was still pending.”

Alice nods silently.

“Alice?”

“Yes, Andy.”

“I still think we should wait till the beginning of June. If nothing happens before then, we’ll start an action.”

“It’s just that these people…”

“Yes, what’s that all about, Alice? I mentioned to Farris that some people seemed to have inside information, but he said he didn’t know how such information could have come from Garland since ‘the matter is still pending,’ his favorite expression. Who are these people? And where’d they get their information?”

“Well, they may be wrong,” Alice says.

“Apparently so. Be patient, okay? We’ll resolve this, I know we will.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she says. “Thanks, Andy.”

“Any time,” he says, and hangs up.

She puts the receiver back on the wall. Outside, she hears the sound of a car pulling up. She looks out through the kitchen window. It is the mail truck.

The mailman greets her as she comes out the back door and walks up the path to the mailbox. He comments on the hot weather they’ve been having, and she agrees it’s been awful, and then he gets back into his truck. Next door, Mrs. Callahan waves to her as she comes out to her own mailbox.

“Morning, Mrs. Glendenning!”

“Morning,” Alice says.

Everything as normal.

Except that her children are gone.

She leafs through the envelopes. Nothing from Garland. Inside the house again, she goes through the mail more thoroughly. A bill from Florida Power and Light…

“Anything from the perps?” Sloate asks.

The perps.…another from Verizon. A third from Burdines. Two pieces of junk mail, both soliciting subscriptions to magazines she’s never heard of. But nothing from Garland. And nothing from the perps, either, no.

“Nothing,” she tells Sloate, and the phone rings again. Sloate grabs for the earphones.

Alice glances at the grandfather clock.

One twenty-five.

She picks up the receiver.

“Mrs. Glendenning?” he says.

She recognizes the voice at once.

“Yes?”

“Has the mail come yet?”

“Yes, it has.”

“Is the check there?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure it’s on the way,” he says. “I’ll call again Monday.”

“Mr. Angelet…”

“I’ll call again Monday,” he repeats, and hangs up.

“Who was that?” Sloate asks.

“A friend of Eddie’s.”

“What check was he asking about?” Sloate wants to know.

“A check he says he mailed.”

“A check for what?”

“He owed my husband some money.”

Sloate looks at her.

She senses that he knows she’s lying.

But she doesn’t care.

Christine is almost afraid to break the news to him.

There is something very frightening about this man.

He’s never hit her or anything like that, he’s not a violent man, although you never can tell with the ones who look as delicate as he does. Once, back when she was still living in North Carolina, she used to date this Latino who looked like a stork, he was that slender and dainty. Actually, he was dealing dope, but that was another matter. The point is, the minute she started living with him, he began batting her around. “What’re you gonna do?” Vicente used to ask her, that was his name, Vicente. “Call the cops?” No, she didn’t call no cops. She just left. Fuck you, Vicente.

The situation is very different here. Christine knows she could never end this relationship, even if he ever did hit her, which he better not try, but she’s not afraid of that, really. He’s never hit her yet, and they’ve been together — what? It must be almost three years since they met, and a year since he cooked up this scheme of his, she can still remember the day he told her about it, she thought he was crazy. That intense look in his eyes, that’s the word for him, she guesses, intense. Everything about him is so fucking intense, man. You can almost feel him vibrating sometimes.

She thinks maybe the reason she’s afraid to tell him what she’s discovered is that this whole idea was his to begin with, and now he may think she’s trying to muscle in on it, come up with an idea of her own, you know? That was one of the things used to get Vicente in a rage all the time, her coming up with ideas of her own. It’s like these delicate guys have to prove they’re not as feminine as they look, so they put you down whenever you try to express yourself. And if dissing you doesn’t work, there’s always the fists, right? They can always give you a black eye or a bloody lip. That hasn’t been the case here yet, but she’s a little gun-shy, she has to admit, of somebody who so perfectly fits the Vicente profile of profound passion in a slight body.

He hasn’t yet asked her why she’s back so late.

All she was supposed to do this morning was ditch the Impala and rent a new car, which she did without any trouble. But going to the bank to break down the hundreds into smaller bills was her idea, not because she suspected any of the bills were counterfeit but only because cashing a big bill in a shitty little town like Cape October could become a hassle.

He’s watching television when she comes in.

The kids are locked in the forward stateroom of the boat. She doesn’t ask him how the kids are. Truth be known, she doesn’t give a shit about the kids. Now that they’ve got the money, all she wants to do is turn the kids loose and get the hell out of here. A quarter of a million dollars can take them anywhere. Stop playing hide-and-seek with the locals here. Go to Hawaii or Europe or the Far East, wherever. Go someplace where a black woman and a white man with blond hair won’t attract the kind of attention they do here in Crackerland.

But she still has to tell him about those three queer bills, and her idea about the rest of the money.

“Where’ve you been?” he asks.

“Here and there,” she says, and goes to him and kisses him on the cheek.

“Did you get the car?”

“A red Taurus.”

“Can’t wait to see it,” he says, and gets up to give her a hug, flicking his long blond hair as he rises. His hair was short when they met three years ago, made him look more butch. She doesn’t dare tell him he looks a bit faggoty with the longer hair, which he didn’t start growing till after all this started, even though they moved out of town where nobody could possibly recognize him.

“I missed you,” he says. “What took you so long?”

“I bought some things,” she says.

“Uh-oh,” he says, but he’s smiling.

“Want to see them?”

She puts the Victoria’s Secret shopping bag on the kitchen table. He’s already recognized it, his eyes are already dancing. He may look like a pansy, but man, the opposite is true when it comes to reaction and performance, you know what I’m saying? She removes the boxes from the bag one by one, stacks them on the table. She shows him the push-up bras in the black hydrangea and the cheetah print. She shows him the leopard-print low-rise thongs. He rubs the fabric between his forefinger and thumb, as if he’s testing one of the hundred-dollar bills. She shows him the red sequin-lace baby-doll nightgown. He especially likes the black lace garter belt.

“I’ll wear it for you tonight,” she says.

“How about now?” he asks.

“We have to talk,” she says.