Max Collins - Hard Cash

“Settle down. You’re not old, and you’re not ugly. But Breen did cheat around on you. You know that. I know it. I also know seven years ago, before you and Breen were married, when you and Breen were just going together, when you were just a barmaid of his yourself, that one time you and I went for a ride when it was snowing out.”

Her mouth quivered a little, and she said, “Yeah, well, I knew then. I knew that he loved me, in his way, that he wanted to marry me, but that he was getting in other girls’ pants every chance he could get and I had to strike back somehow. Not that I told him, or wanted him to find out, Christ no. But after that I could live with it better somehow, live with his running around on me. And what the hell, I liked you, Nolan. But you were hopeless. You were a goddamn wall no woman could hope to get behind and make something at all permanent with you. Maybe now there’d be a chance, but then? No way. And so we went for a ride in the country that time, and it was snowing, and it was something special to me. I never cheated on him again, did you know that? And when he cheated on me, when I knew he was or thought he was, I’d remember that time, hold it close to me like some precious goddamn stone, and... shit I’m going sentimental on you, Nolan. Can a tough guy like you take it? Jesus.”

“Mary. Do you think it could be the barmaid?”

“Do I what?”

“The killing. Could it have been somebody after the barmaid. A jealous husband. Jealous boyfriend.”

“Maybe. Maybe. I hadn’t thought of that but maybe. Or one of his other bitches, jealous of the new one. Are you saying you agree with me, Nolan? That you think something’s strange about his death?”

“Yeah, I agree. Or sort of agree. Coincidences bother me. I know they’re possible. I been caught up in them before. But I never believe in a coincidence till I look down its throat and up its ass. Then I believe in it. Not until. So. Could you give me a list of the people Breen was involved with, with his gambling?”

“Easily. We didn’t have any secrets where his gambling was concerned. Hell, I helped him handicap. I never caught the bug, but I was around the gambling scene too long not to be at least semi-involved.”

“Good. What about his girls?”

“In that case he was a little secretive. Mostly the girls working in the bar, I guess. They would stay on as help till they tired of him, or vice versa, but usually vice. He was not the best lay in the world, you know.”

Nolan smiled. “That’s not the way he used to see it.”

“Well, he wasn’t really in a position to know, if you know what I mean. Hey, Nolan, what are you going to do? Play detective? Find the killer? I didn’t know you read Mickey Spillane.”

“You want me to level with you, don’t you, Mary?”

“Of course I want you to level. Did you come clear from Iowa to bullshit me?”

He spread his hands. “Personally, I don’t give a damn who killed your husband. Matter of fact, he ran out on me one time. Justifiably, but I just mention it by way of showing I don’t owe him any posthumous favors. However. In this business, when somebody you worked with is killed, in circumstances that are even remotely suspicious, it doesn’t pay to ignore the matter. Your husband worked with me on a lot of jobs. Something out of one of those past jobs might have crawled out of the woodwork and killed him. Which affects me, obviously. So I can’t feel comfortable till I find out who was responsible for your husband’s killing. Plus, I admit I got some feelings for you. I figure maybe you would feel better if you knew what was really behind his death.”

“Do you ever think about it, Nolan?”

“About what?”

“Dying. Death.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“When you think about it, you get paranoid. Then you’re slow when you should be fast. Punchy when you should be alert.”

“Is that what happened to my husband?”

“Maybe. Sometimes you can’t avoid it. Sometimes you get hit by a truck even when you look both ways. That’s the way it is. Life. A gamble.”

She smiled, rather bitterly, he thought. “Well, my man never was much of a gambler.”

“I’m sorry about Breen. I really am. He was a good man.”

“Even if he did run out on you once?”

“Even then. I’d have done the same in his place.”

“That’s what it’s about, isn’t it? Survival.”

“You could put it that way.”

“Nolan. Tell me.”

“What?”

“Why did he do it?”

“Heisting, you mean? You know why. To support the gambling.”

“Not the heisting. The women. Why... why wasn’t I enough?”

“Why did he gamble? Why can some men quit smoking and others puff away, even after they’ve seen the X-rays? I don’t know. I don’t understand people. I can barely tolerate them, let alone understand them.”

She sighed. “More coffee?”

“No.”

“I loved him, Nolan.”

“Yeah. Well, you must have. To put up with his gambling and his women both. And not every woman can stand being married to somebody in my business.”

“I thought you were out of the business.”

“You’re never out.”

“I guess not Listen, there’s... there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“Okay.”

“I want to talk upstairs. There’s something of his I want to give you.”

“Okay.”

She led him upstairs.

Into a darkened room.

The shade was drawn, but some of the light from outside was seeping in; overcast day that it was, the seepage didn’t amount to much. But he could see the bed, the double bed, and he could see Mary, disrobing.

She stood and held her arms out to him.

She stood naked and said, without saying it, Am I so ugly? Wouldn’t I be enough for most men?

She would have been plenty, for just about anybody. Sure, her thighs were a little fleshy, and there was a plumpness around her tummy, and she had an appendix scar. And her breasts didn’t look quite as firm as they once had. But big breasts never do, and they were nice and big, pink nipples against ivory flesh. He walked over and put a hand on one of the breasts, felt the nipple go erect. He put his other hand between her legs. He put his mouth over hers.

There was carpet up here. Downstairs, bare floors. But up here, on Mary’s insistence, no doubt, was plush carpeting, tufted fuzzy white carpeting, and they did it on the floor, and when she came, she cried finally, and they crawled up on the bed and rested.

Outside, it snowed.

She walked him out to the car. They had rested for several hours, and then she fixed him something to eat — nothing fancy, just a sandwich — and it was early evening all of a sudden, and he was saying he had to get back. Something doing in Iowa City tomorrow, he said, and she got his coat for him.

She’d been surprised how good he looked. She hadn’t seen him for several years, since the last time he’d stopped at the bar to talk to her husband about some job. She’d heard from her husband of Nolan’s troubles, that he’d been shot damn near to death several times the last couple of years, and she’d expected that to show on him. No. Some gray hair at the temples, but Nolan stayed the same. Handsome, in that narrow-eyed, mustached, slightly evil way of his. His body remained lithe, muscular; scarred but beautiful. He’d felt so beautiful in her...

“You’ll be back then?” she said, leaning against the car, by the window. He was behind the wheel; the engine was going. The snow had let up.

“I’m going to poke into your husband’s killing a little, yes,” he said. “But it’s not the movies. No revenge, Mary. I don’t believe in that. I’m doing it to protect my own ass.”